Covid-19: What you need to know today

Purely based on the numbers and nothing else, the rate of Covid-19 infection seems to increase sharply once countries cross a certain threshold. On March 27, the number of cases in India crossed 800. It was 878 at 10:45pm on Friday. Clearly, the next few weeks are crucial for India. The country is in a lockdown till April 15.

By Thursday evening it was clear that the US would overtake China to become the country with the most number of Covid-19 cases in the world. As on Friday evening (India time), the country had over 94,000cases, and had seen more than 1,400deaths on account of Sars-CoV-2, the virus causing the pandemic.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported, quoting New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, that the number of people admitted to hospitals increased by 40% -- in one day.

On March 9, the US had 704 cases according to worldometers.com. On March 26, it had 85,435. In 17 days, it added, 84,731 cases. On February 27, Italy had 655 cases. On March 26, it had 80,589 – in 28 days, it added 79,934 cases. On March 8, Spain had 674 cases. On March 26, it had 57,786. In 18 days, it added 57,112 cases. On January 22, China had 571 cases. On February 13, it had 63,851 cases. In 22 days, it added 63,280 cases.

Purely based on the numbers and nothing else, the rate of infection seems to increase sharply once countries cross a certain threshold. On March 27, the number of cases in India crossed 800. It was 878 at 10:45pm on Friday. Clearly, the next few weeks are crucial for India. The country is in a lockdown till April 15.

At last count, at least 15 US states had more than 1,000 cases, indicating a spread of the disease not seen in any other country (including China, where almost 80% of the cases were in Hubei province, and only three other provinces saw more than 1,000 cases.

The people at the forefront of managing the coronavirus crisis in India would do well to look at the US closely.

Like India, it is a democracy.

Like India, it has a federal system of government.

And like India, it is geographically vast.

The US is, after China and India, the third most populous country in the world (although the gap between India, the second most populous, and it, is huge).

Experts say that one of the first mistakes made by the US was its reluctance to adopt widespread testing. This, they believe, may have masked the true extent of the crisis. India has pretty much done the same – following all-too-stringent criteria for testing, and, only as recently as a few days ago, opening up testing to private laboratories. Sure, the criteria India used was what WHO recommends, but the multilateral body’s handling of this pandemic has been far from ideal.

But India moved quickly in terms of containment and isolation. It restricted, and then completely barred international flights; it set up screening checks for travellers entering the country; it enforced quarantines; and, finally, it declared a hard lockdown for three weeks to April 15. The lockdown was enforced under a law never used before the Disaster Management Act, which requires the state governments to follow the federal government’s leadership and instructions in managing the pandemic, and which also provides for penalties for anyone not doing so. The US, in contrast, did not. The lockdown was also a sign that India’s leadership took the crisis seriously – it was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an address to the nation. In the US, President Donald Trump is already talking of easing lockdowns by Easter (April 12).

The US also finds itself where it is because of a shortage of medical equipment – from protective wear for doctors to masks to ventilators, which are needed for the most critical patients. India has announced ~15,000 crore to strengthen its health infrastructure and also embarked on expanding local manufacturing of some of these (including ventilators), but it isn’t clear how soon it will be able to build an adequate reserve of these. India on Friday set in place a plan to acquire 40,000 ventilators, which would double the current inventory of the life-saving device.The lockdown has bought India some time, but the US experience with the virus highlights the importance of using this time well.