COVID-19 – the difficult journey and the uncertainties ahead

Increasingly over the last few months the growing stranglehold of the novel coronavirus (nCoV) and the resulting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) over humanity have grabbed headlines and mind space across the world. A couple of generations of people perhaps have not experienced a global crisis as widespread and as impactful as this one.

While the region of its origin is certain, there’s lack of clarity so far on the cause of its spread.

What did India do?

In a hyperconnected world, perhaps no country would be lucky enough to stay free of this virus. The  first case in the world was reported on 31-Dec-19, and India reported its first on 30-Jan-20. Seven weeks on it had jumped to an alarming 468.

While its spread in India ensured daily reporting in media, Government of India (GoI) too was taking it seriously. It issued advisories on social distancing, use of masks, large gatherings and home quarantine. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued various advisories, guidelines and awareness material (documented under Resources). There were also addresses by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on 12-Mar and 16-Mar. Restrictions were introduced in phases across the country, from restricting entry and discouraging outgoing travel to selective quarantining for incoming passengers to curbing international travel, first partially, then entirely. Not just people based in India, GoI also rescued Indians overseas. Indians were brought back from China and other early impacted regions or countries, and then others as well. It also provided support such as facilitating visa extension for Indians who could not be immediately brought back to India. Reports suggest that striving to protect Indians from this crisis has been an exercise done on a war footing, day after day, and is a multidirectional and multilevel one.

In addition to fighting daunting multidimensional challenges posed by the spread of nCoV, GoI could not afford to ignore the spread of misinformation associated with the crisis on social media and issued an advisory for that as well.

Besides other efforts by GoI on protecting India and Indians abroad from nCoV, the Prime Minister too addressed the nation on 19-Mar, emphasising the seriousness of the health crisis, as well as asking everyone living in India to observe a janata curfew (self-imposed curfew) on 22-Mar, to prevent people from mingling outside their families for as much as 14 hours. In addition, he asked people of India to applaud medical staff for working very hard to cure and protect people across the country while facing a new risk themselves and exposing their respective families to it. People of India made the Janata Curfew a success and enthusiastically applauded the medical fraternity for five minutes starting 5:00 PM – an exercise that undoubtedly would have boosted the morale of the medical fraternity, as well as bonded Indians over positivity on an unprecedented scale.

On the night of 24-Mar, the Prime Minister addressed the nation once again, this time to declare a country-wide lockdown for 21 days, starting at midnight, barely four hours later. An unprecedented step, the lockdown was also the first to be imposed by any country affected by nCoV, and was endorsed by World Health Organisation, while acknowledging some of its negative impacts.

Indian society being as easy going as it is, the lockdown was defied by many – there were scenes of people being assaulted by the police as well as some assaulting the police for asking them to stay at home. There was also one instance of the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh stepping out for a quiet religious function within hours of imposition of the lockdown, which may be attributed to a mix of  religious belief and political compulsion. Based on convictions, one is free to either choose to give explanations for this function, or attack the Chief Minister. However, there was a much more serious instance of a large religious gathering – reports suggest number of attendees between 3000 and 9000 – in the national capital, of people from different countries and different states of India over the month of March. After the mid-March event, over 2300 stayed on in the religious centre till they were evacuated early on 01-Apr. As the weeks and months have passed in 2020, the spread of nCoV in the world and its increasing footprint in India has gained more and more visibility. This also led to prohibition in Delhi of certain kinds of gatherings of over 200 people. This makes the religious event in Delhi an illegal one besides one of extreme irresponsibility. A large number of people living in close proximity to each other for as much as a month led to exactly what authorities, doctors and society in general would fear – the virus has spread rapidly among the participants. Many who left after the event, carried the infection with themselves and have spread it to other states.

Meanwhile, as the days of the lockdown have progressed, it has become more and more effective – increasingly, Indians are staying indoors, using masks when they step out and maintaining physical distance. The responsibility assumed by every person on the street is heartening. It is helping realise the purpose of the lockdown.

Main and side-effects of the lockdown

Among the most obvious positive outcomes of the lockdown is reduced acceleration of the spread of the infection. Among the desirable by-products have been reduced noise and air pollution and a forced slowdown of pace for many.

The negative effects of the lockdown are many, and devastating. Daily wagers have lost means of earning; members of less well-off sections of society who’ve migrated to bigger cities may have lost means of livelihood and are stranded in bigger cities, a long distance from their homes; depending on industries, small enterprises to large corporates have had to scale down operations or shut down altogether for this period. Professionals from industries such as manufacturing, travel or hospitality have no choice but to stay at home, not knowing the extent of impact to their employers and the future of their own employment. Professionals who have the option to continue working are perhaps the most fortunate ones – they wake every morning with a sense of purpose, have a feeling of satisfaction for contributing to keeping their organisations’ businesses running, and have a greater feeling of security than those who are not able to work at all during this period. Several organisations have also had to incur cost of getting a number of their staff to work from home. And till this arrangement is put in place, there is an inevitable cost of disruption to business.

If one looks on the brighter side of the lockdown, among the benefits of these crippling economic and social costs are a very large number of saved lives (including workforce), secure or relatively secure families, and not living with continuous fear for months on end should the infection persist on a large scale.

Along came Tablighi Jamaat

With the heavy costs incurred, one could have still got some solace by considering the longer terms benefits for India. However, the cost to be incurred by the whole nation has been revised, and the benefits to be realised have been made harder to achieve, thanks to the criminal negligence of unprecedented proportions by organisers and participants of the religious gathering in Delhi.

Besides paying no regard whatsoever to the warnings by the governments, or to media reports on the seriousness of the situation, attendees of the event in Delhi even travelled back to their states, coming in contact with hundreds and potentially spreading the infection directly or indirectly to thousands. Where the country could’ve hoped for reduced acceleration of the spread as the lockdown progressed, the participants of the gathering can directly be blamed for this not having been achieved. Besides fighting a novel crisis of gigantic proportions, authorities in India have had to track the movements of attendees of the meet as well as identify those they came in contact with after the event and have placed over 25000 of them on quarantine.

Not just this, several Tablighis have gone into hiding instead of surrendering themselves for testing, potentially undoing considerable efforts made by GoI and hardships endured by much of India’s population. This included its chief, who cannot be traced but claims he is in self-quarantine.

Could the event have been nipped in the bud?

Apparently yes. The group’s intentions are suspect – they are believed to have links with terrorist organisations. Yet visas were issued for some known to have extreme views. In addition, if the organisation does indeed have the links as reported, and if thousands of its members were heading to Delhi from across states, and from outside India, why did GoI allow the event to happen at all? One theory is that they did not want to be seen as stopping a religious event and be labelled anti-Muslim by the Indian and global illuminati. For a government known to take tough decisions and push legislations such as CAA or abolition of triple talaq, one can fault them for not preventing the large gathering from happening. Even though it’s an annual event, its timing this year was disastrous.

Role played by Government of India, state governments and citizens of India

But one must acknowledge GoI’s effort so far. Declaring lockdown of a country the size of India, and to be the first national government in the world to do so requires a more-than-usual amount of courage on part of the Prime Minister. In spite of compulsively being attacked by political opponents around him day after day and year after year, the Prime Minister has reached out to them to work with them. Initiative has been taken collectively by governments to contain the pandemic.  Coaches of trains have been converted to isolation wards; hotels have been converted into hospitals in Lucknow, Mumbai and undoubtedly in other parts of the country. Prominent and ordinary Indians have contributed to the PM CARES fund. Governments at different levels, along with NGOs and various industries have also provided food and shelter to impacted sections of society.

It is important to remind ourselves that no living Head of state or government has faced a crisis of this nature and enormity. It involves collectively digesting inputs flowing in from 360° (and frequently changing), identifying resources needed and the timing of their availability, taking decisions that won’t please all sections of society, understanding the impact of those decisions and retaining or modifying those decisions. All this and much more while racing against time.

As has been splendidly articulated here, it’s easy to criticise, quite another to take hard decisions and face flak from the usual suspects and the general public for what didn’t go according to plan or could not be planned.

What does the future hold?

In the immediate future, If the lockdown in India is extended, one hopes that not just the Prime Minister, but Chief Ministers of every state supporting it, besides prominent leaders of the Opposition, jointly address the people of India. This will give 130 crore Indians the powerful positive message that multiple governments and parties are together during this time of unprecedented crisis, and will work together to bring India out of the body blow this lockdown is serving on the economy and society.

It has been suggested that had China taken timely steps to contain the pandemic, the crisis would not have been what it has become today. One author has rightly warned, if those who are to blame are not held accountable, for countries and organisations to unleash this havoc on the world may become the new normal. For now, China does not seem to be willing to cooperate.

It is time for democracies across the world to develop a collective spine even as they tackle the crisis, and demand explanations from the guilty. They also need to secure global commitments on biological and psychological terror not being allowed to become tools of government policy, as well as on timely transparency should the world face such a threat again. They owe it to the future generations.