India needs emergency Plan for Coronavirus
Coronavirus has finally reached India. Indian Govt needs to prepare an action plan considering all eventualities & scenarios.
Some underlying facts of Coronavirus (hereafter refereed as covid 19)
Coronavirus has two main features. High infection rate and causing significant number of people requiring critical medical attention. The Death rate of Covid 19 is not ascertained but is estimated to be between 2-5%. 80% of People infected only have mild symptoms, 15% get moderate symptoms while 5% face critical life threatening symptoms. The virus poses more risk to older people, children & people with underlying health conditions like Heart disease & Diabetes. This virus has no cure as of yet. India will face a major outbreak if Convid-19 reach a critical level, after which containment will not be possible. The virus has exceptionally high rate of transmission and spreads rapidly as seen in Wuhan, China. India should carefully analyze the below mentioned issues and prepare an action plan accordingly.
Structurally weak Healthcare system - Incapable of dealing with large scale crisis like Covid 19
Our Healthcare system is structurally weak & incapable to deal with covid 19 outbreak even if it spreads minimally & infects only 1% of total population. India has massive shortage of Doctors, Nurses & other healthcare professionals. India doesn't have resources in our healthcare infrastructure like hospitals, medical equipment, protective gears, testing kits etc etc to deal with emergency.
India's Population Dynamics - A grave threat of spreading of infection - Containment will be impossible
Densely populated Indian cities will face big crisis if outbreak gets out of control. Even 1% population infection will lead to severe burden on our healthcare system. The system will totally collapse if a higher number of people, like as much as 10% of population, get infected. Out break in rural areas will become a major concern as we do not have outreach to deal with these areas. Also most of the population lives in villages in rural India while most of the population lives in slums & illegal colonies in urban cities. These places will become breeding ground of viruses and it would be impossible to achieve any containment.
A case scenario in Delhi with over 20 million population. If 1% of population gets infected, that will mean more 10,000 critical care patients who will face respiratory failures, organ failures & cardiac arrests. These patients will also be highly infections and must be treated with great precaution in special quarantine zones. I have seen the state of healthcare system in Delhi and i feel that Delhi is unprepared to deal with thins kind of emergency. Now imagine a scenario where 10% of population gets infected.
Indian economy to face big disruption - Economy already weak in last four years - Global macroeconomic picture also bleak
India is now facing THREE crisis simultaneously. 1 - Structural problems in economy, 2- Man made crisis due to policies like Demonetization, 3 - A Natural disaster emergency due to Covid-19. So we now have a natural disaster on top of man made crisis on top of structural problems.
There will be severe disruption in economy if outbreak gets out of control. As more & more people get sick, they will be absent from work. There will be massive supply chain disruption at all levels of economy. Private businesses and services will be affected as people will miss work. Government functioning will also be affected as meetings & gatherings have to be severally restricted.
Masks & Sanitizers are already unavailable in medical stores. But things will turn bad when essential supplies like food & vegetables start to to run out of stock. Also India won't get required imports of goods from China & other countries as they are also facing covid 19 crisis and many factories in China have shut down. Many factories in China are now working only to meet their domestic demand as China fights covid-19.
A grave crisis of National security - India in unprepared - Kashmir can become a big problem
Military is engaged in Covid-19 emergency plans in countries like China, Iran & South Korea where major out break has taken place. India may face same situation if outbreak gets out of control. Army & CRPF will be employed in relief efforts and to control law & order in major cities as it happens in case of relief efforts in Floods and Landslides. Also, Indian Military has not dealt with emergency like virus outbreak in the past.
Presently more than 500,000 forces of our Indian military and Paramilitary force CRPF is heavily deployed in Kashmir alone in response to abrogation of article 370. Also Paramilitary forces and Police are involved in containing anti CAA protests across India. Therefore much of our Army, CRPF & state Police is already employed to deal with various situations. It would be very difficult to divert and mobilize these forces to focus on covid 19 relief efforts and maintaining law & order.
A scenario - Suppose covid-19 outbreak happens in major cities like Delhi or Mumbai and there are is collapse of social order & state control in these cities. Our Govt would have to withdraw our forces from Kashmir & deploy them in our cities. This will create a vacuum in Kashmir and may create a national security crisis.
India faces a grim future in worst case scenario of Covid 19 outbreak. We need an action plan and technocratic leadership to guide India in this time of crisis.
Some underlying facts of Coronavirus (hereafter refereed as covid 19)
Coronavirus has two main features. High infection rate and causing significant number of people requiring critical medical attention. The Death rate of Covid 19 is not ascertained but is estimated to be between 2-5%. 80% of People infected only have mild symptoms, 15% get moderate symptoms while 5% face critical life threatening symptoms. The virus poses more risk to older people, children & people with underlying health conditions like Heart disease & Diabetes. This virus has no cure as of yet. India will face a major outbreak if Convid-19 reach a critical level, after which containment will not be possible. The virus has exceptionally high rate of transmission and spreads rapidly as seen in Wuhan, China. India should carefully analyze the below mentioned issues and prepare an action plan accordingly.
Structurally weak Healthcare system - Incapable of dealing with large scale crisis like Covid 19
Our Healthcare system is structurally weak & incapable to deal with covid 19 outbreak even if it spreads minimally & infects only 1% of total population. India has massive shortage of Doctors, Nurses & other healthcare professionals. India doesn't have resources in our healthcare infrastructure like hospitals, medical equipment, protective gears, testing kits etc etc to deal with emergency.
India's Population Dynamics - A grave threat of spreading of infection - Containment will be impossible
Densely populated Indian cities will face big crisis if outbreak gets out of control. Even 1% population infection will lead to severe burden on our healthcare system. The system will totally collapse if a higher number of people, like as much as 10% of population, get infected. Out break in rural areas will become a major concern as we do not have outreach to deal with these areas. Also most of the population lives in villages in rural India while most of the population lives in slums & illegal colonies in urban cities. These places will become breeding ground of viruses and it would be impossible to achieve any containment.
A case scenario in Delhi with over 20 million population. If 1% of population gets infected, that will mean more 10,000 critical care patients who will face respiratory failures, organ failures & cardiac arrests. These patients will also be highly infections and must be treated with great precaution in special quarantine zones. I have seen the state of healthcare system in Delhi and i feel that Delhi is unprepared to deal with thins kind of emergency. Now imagine a scenario where 10% of population gets infected.
Indian economy to face big disruption - Economy already weak in last four years - Global macroeconomic picture also bleak
India is now facing THREE crisis simultaneously. 1 - Structural problems in economy, 2- Man made crisis due to policies like Demonetization, 3 - A Natural disaster emergency due to Covid-19. So we now have a natural disaster on top of man made crisis on top of structural problems.
There will be severe disruption in economy if outbreak gets out of control. As more & more people get sick, they will be absent from work. There will be massive supply chain disruption at all levels of economy. Private businesses and services will be affected as people will miss work. Government functioning will also be affected as meetings & gatherings have to be severally restricted.
Masks & Sanitizers are already unavailable in medical stores. But things will turn bad when essential supplies like food & vegetables start to to run out of stock. Also India won't get required imports of goods from China & other countries as they are also facing covid 19 crisis and many factories in China have shut down. Many factories in China are now working only to meet their domestic demand as China fights covid-19.
A grave crisis of National security - India in unprepared - Kashmir can become a big problem
Military is engaged in Covid-19 emergency plans in countries like China, Iran & South Korea where major out break has taken place. India may face same situation if outbreak gets out of control. Army & CRPF will be employed in relief efforts and to control law & order in major cities as it happens in case of relief efforts in Floods and Landslides. Also, Indian Military has not dealt with emergency like virus outbreak in the past.
Presently more than 500,000 forces of our Indian military and Paramilitary force CRPF is heavily deployed in Kashmir alone in response to abrogation of article 370. Also Paramilitary forces and Police are involved in containing anti CAA protests across India. Therefore much of our Army, CRPF & state Police is already employed to deal with various situations. It would be very difficult to divert and mobilize these forces to focus on covid 19 relief efforts and maintaining law & order.
A scenario - Suppose covid-19 outbreak happens in major cities like Delhi or Mumbai and there are is collapse of social order & state control in these cities. Our Govt would have to withdraw our forces from Kashmir & deploy them in our cities. This will create a vacuum in Kashmir and may create a national security crisis.
India faces a grim future in worst case scenario of Covid 19 outbreak. We need an action plan and technocratic leadership to guide India in this time of crisis.
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