India’s response to Covid-19 ‘outstanding’, governance exemplary: Australian academicians

New Delhi: The whole world is going through the unprecedented crisis due to Covid-19. Till today, more than 146 countries across 6 continents have been affected with death figures soaring upto almost 1.5 lakh.

A group of Australian academicians, in their study, found that India is among those countries who responded to this pandemic strongly and effectively. And, the basis of this response was ‘political leadership’ of the country.

Leadership of some countries including India took decisive steps to slow the spread of Coronavirus, setting an example for many other nations.

About India, the study says that despite being one of the most populated countries in the world, India’s response to Covid-19 has been outstanding. It also listed out some of key steps taken by Indian government to keep the spread and death rate low.

Proactive approach: India acted much in advance and rolled out a string of measures to safeguard itself from foreign travellers serving as the carries of Covid-19.

India canceled visas of foreign travelers from China, South Korea, and Iran on February 26 and all Indian residents returning from countries with known positive cases were put in isolation for 15 days. India also banned the entry of residents from all other countries on 18th March. The screening of all incoming passengers started as early as the 5th of February, said the report citing study.

Nation-wide lockdown: Being well-aware of its limited medical resources and preparedness to deal with such momentous calamity, India entered nationwide lockdown quite early. PM Modi requested for self-impose curfew for 1 day on March 22.

On March 24, the entire country went into complete lockdown for 3 weeks, among the largest lockdowns by a country. More recently, it extended the lockdown till May 3.

Being realistic about resources at hand and a pragmatic decision at the right moment helped contain the Corona numbers.

Co-ordinated effort: “Different states in India are ruled by different political parties and implementing any national policy or plan at such a short notice is not easy. However, the country has shown remarkable solidarity and all states and union territories have supported the PM in implementing the national plan,” the report said.

Use of Technology: Government has been relentlessly pursuing the source of infection and putting all those in quarantine who came in contact with Covid-19 infected person.

The study finds Arogya Setu app to be a strong tool to safeguard onself from the virus as the App uses Geo tracking to alert a person who may have come in contact with any Covid-19 patient.

HCQ treatment: India’s anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine has proved to a strong antidote to Covid-19 and has yielded good results in treating high-risk patients.

A number of other nations also found the drug to be highly effective in treating the disease. Since, India is the biggest producer of this HCQ drug, many countries including US sought its export. Till date, India has exported HCQ to over 30 countries including US, Maldives, Brazil, Israel.

There has been some criticism of India’s response that it acted too quickly. The criticism that was levied against India’s proactive approach towards banning foreigners from entering India and the eventual complete nationwide lockdown was that the Indian government was too quick to shut down the economic activity.

 (Image Courtesy: medium.com)

The report also took note of criticism of Indian government acting quickly and closing the economy early.

“Some critics argued that the lockdown was doing more economic damage than the disease could have done. However, that is not the same in the Indian setting. A delayed start to the strict medical containment measures could have led to the worse health crisis and worsening economic crisis,” the report said.