by
Dr. P. S. Sahni
India has crossed 80,000 cases with no
peak in sight in the near future after fifty-two days of lockdown; phase IV of
lockdown will become effective from 18 May, 2020 onwards. The daily increase of
cases even as of today is 5 %; with no hope of reaching under 1% in the
foreseeable future. It means that unlike China, Indian health authorities did
not do aggressive and adequate testing; so asymptomatic cases could not be
detected and the infection continued to spread. The ICMR (Indian Council of
Medical Research) – approved testing kits were returned back to the Chinese
firms; if these were indeed faulty has anyone from ICMR/Union Health Ministry/All
India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) been punished for the initial
approval? Delay in adequate testing raised the number of cases in India; this
could have been prevented. India could have just followed the Chinese template
of management. Indian Government did not.
China reached its peak of 80,000 cases
within 40 days of clampdown (22/23 January – 1 March, 2020). About 20,00,000
tests were conducted in these 40 days. In the next 81 days the daily increase
of cases stayed under 1%, nay a fraction of 1%. China continued the lockdown
for a total of 77 days. When it lifted the lockdown the daily increase of cases
was 0.08%. Thus at a total of 81740 cases on 6 April, the increase was by 62
cases on 7 April!!
After reaching 40,000 cases China
doubled to 80,000 in 20 days (Doubling rate 20). India reached 40,000 cases on
May 3 and doubled to 80,000 cases in 12 days on May 15. Our daily increase is 5% on 15 May. It is 5
divided by 0.08 or 62.5 times the Chinese growth rate on reaching 80,000 case
mark!
Cabinet
Ministers in the Indian Government were openly asking foreign countries to
shift their manufacturing bases from China to India; these Minsters joined the
motivated campaign of isolating China presumably at the instance of USA.
China
offered help by way of sending medical experts; the Indian Government did not
care to accept. The Indian Government all along took solace from the fact that
a dozen odd countries mainly in Europe as also the USA were doing worse; whereas
comparison should have been between the four Asian countries – more so China,
South Korea, India. The Indian Government failed to learn from both the Chinese
and South Korean experiences of managing the COVID-19 Pandemic faster and much
better with less morbidity and mortality.
First published: https://countercurrents.org/
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