India walks a tightrope to balance lives and livelihoods amid Covid-19


Three days in a row, the last two days of August and the first day of September 2020, Indian newspapers ran puzzling reports on the front page.

On August 30, headlines prominently displayed the new set of Unlock India guidelines issued by the Center. Equally prominent next door was news that the country broke the world record for the maximum number of new COVID-19 cases in a single day. With 78,761 new cases, India had broken the previous single-day spread record of 77,200 positive COVID cases recorded by the United States on July 17.


On August 31, the front page headlines broadcast that India the previous day, a Sunday, had achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the first country in the world to register more than 80,000 new cases of COVID-19 in a single day.

On the third day in a row, Sept. 1, the headlines screamed that India’s GDP, which was reeling even before the pandemic hit, had contracted nearly 24 percent in the April-June quarter of fiscal 2020. -twenty-one. The drop was said to have been attributed to the prolonged nationwide lockdown imposed by the government as its first COVID-19 response.

The lockdown, which in hindsight has done little to stop the spread of infections, froze both investment and consumption in core sectors and raised the unemployment rate. Since April, millions of workers have been laid off and many small businesses have closed overnight. Alongside this story was the news item detailing how Maharashtra’s Unlock 4.0 guidelines, the state that continues to contribute nearly a quarter to the national COVID-19 case count, had opened most sectors, albeit with all the mandatory preventive measures in force.

Nothing ‘August’ about August

India registered its first 70,000 cases in a single day on August 22. After a momentary decline over the next two days, the number of daily cases rose to 66,873 on August 25. The next four days consistently hit the more than 76,000 mark, while on August 30, the country surpassed the mark of more than 80,000 single-day cases.

By the way, both the days when India broke the two nasty milestones of 70,000 and the daily case count of 80,000 fell on weekends, during which time the numbers had reliably declined since cases began to rise in May. . The lower number of tests performed over the weekends was seen as contributing to the lower numbers for the weekend. Previously, the highest peak on Sunday was Aug.9, when 63,851 people tested positive.

The increase in the last week of August has also reversed some of India’s initial gains in terms of both daily growth in cases and deaths. The growth rate in the number of cases reached 13.1 percent, almost three times the 4.7 percent average recorded in the previous week. The previous highest weekly peak of 10.9 percent was recorded from Aug. 3-9. The death rate also grew to almost 4 percent, more than double the 1.7 percent recorded the previous week.

Despite the sharp increase in cases, there was a streak of light around the dark COVID clouds in August. India successfully accelerated testing to ensure, on a five-day moving average, a sharp increase in both – doubling time for growth in cases and deaths. From roughly a 24-day case doubling rate at the beginning of the month, the rate increased to around 33 days on August 31. Likewise, the doubling rate of deaths also increased from around 30 days in early August to more than 50 days at the end of the month. In early June, when Unlock 1.0 was announced, the doubling rate for cases and deaths was 15 and 17 days respectively.

This increase in the duplication rate can be attributed to the increase in testing, which surpassed the 10 million test-per-day mark towards the end of August. According to the Union Ministry of Health, the exponential leap in testing capacity and the number of tests brought tests per million to more than 30,000. The increased testing also reduced the positivity rate (proportion of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases among all tests performed) from nearly 12 percent on July 25 to slightly less than 8 percent on August 31 by a 7-day moving average.

Balancing Livelihoods and Livelihoods: India Walks a Tightrope

The surge was a foregone conclusion since the gradual loosening of the blockade was introduced. With the kind of impact the lockdown had on the economy, the unlock was not too difficult to predict either. However, given the growing fury with which the pandemic has spread, one is still not sure when the spike will occur, let alone how long it will take to flatten the curve.

India’s CFR (fatality rate) of 1.8 percent, which is well below the world average of 3.4 percent, as well as the country’s low positivity rate as a whole seems to have given the impression that ease of movement and business means the country is out of danger. Millions who were locked indoors for months are convinced that the new coronavirus is not as dangerous as previously believed and certainly not as deadly.

The way in which large crowds have packed public places without regard for face masks and social distancing norms and pre-closure congestion on roads in returning Indian cities shows that, for most, the pandemic is almost over. This complexity was also reflected in comments made by the Mumbai municipal commissioner in mid-July. Citing the improved testing facilities and the ‘R’ rate (rate of healthy people infected by a COVID-19 patient) of 1.1, he said that “technically” the pandemic was about to end.

Cities like Mumbai have done a commendable job of ensuring that the outbreak does not break out. It is therefore recommended that they learn from Auckland and South Korea, which despite having negligible population density and a high degree of civic discipline, were recently forced to re-enforce lockdowns when the virus struck back after it broke out. claimed he had been defeated.

Incidentally, the spread of the pandemic in India is in line with the predictions of the study conducted by the Indian Institute of Sciences in mid-April. In the worst case, he concluded, India would register 3.5 million cases by the end of August. India has fared slightly worse, registering nearly 3.7 million cases as of Aug. 31. The peak, according to the worst-case prediction, would be set only in March 2021. Another study, initially attributed to the ICMR which later distanced itself from it, had stated that contagion will reach its peak in the country in mid-November. . leading to a shortage of intensive care equipment, including isolation beds, ICUs, and ventilators.

In fact, as things are going, rural areas that already suffer from poor health infrastructure are exposed to a much higher degree of risk. More than 55 percent of the cases during the August spike came from 584 districts classified as “mostly rural” or “fully rural.” Another 16 percent came from “rurban” areas. To put this in context, “whole urban” areas contributed 64 percent of India’s total cases in April. Dr. T Jacob John, Professor Emeritus of Christian Medical College, Vellore, has conjectured that the governments of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, despite the initial spread like wildfire, brought the contagion under relative control thanks to the resources toilets available. “What we are likely to see in the villages will not be like this, it will be a slow and prolonged fire … much more difficult to contain,” he warned, explaining how the villages are “at a disadvantage due to their inadequate health systems.”

Unlocking India: A Necessary Evil That Must Be Handled With Caution

With a safe injection vaccine yet to be discovered and then available to 1.3 billion Indians yet at an uncertain time, the virus appears set to run its course in the country. The economic devastation caused by the blockade must be stopped by all means.

The responsibility rests firmly with each individual to adhere to all safety precautions and regulations. Starting in September, when Unlock 4.0 begins, the war on COVID-19 is literally an ‘all for one and one for all’ effort. At the same time, the government has to announce a series of additional measures to boost the economy that is facing a black hole. Unless specific fiscal injections are not given urgently, “green shoots” run the risk of disappearing.

Disclaimer: Dhaval Desai is Principal Investigator and Vice President of the Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. The opinions expressed by the author are personal.

This article first appeared on ORF

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