COVID-19 (Origin, spread, effect in India & in the World)
More than 7.5 billion people living on this planet is held by this global epidemic. India which is the home of 1.37 billion people is constrained to their home.
It’s a virus that silences the world’s largest democracy for an indefinite of time. The world’s fifth-largest economy is defunct for the first time in history and nobody knows how long this will going to take, how this virus will attack, how long it’ll stay. It’s a war between humans and viruses, just remember the population of India 137Cr!
Our challenge is that virus which has no treatment, unknown symptoms, hospitals are overwhelmed with patients and which is spreading so vigorously that it seems almost impossible to deal with. In this condition, our frontline workers take the charge. The main motive is not only to flatten the growing curve but also to decrease the number of patients. The main incentive is to save the LIVES.
BEGINNING OF THE CRISIS
In the middle east of China, Wuhan the most populated city in China. Wuhan is the main part of China’s economic growth, Wuhan never stops. But now everything is going to change. In December 2019 all of the hospitals start filling with patients with pneumonia, a secret virus is attacking the body which damages the whole breathing system. People are dying of it. Wuhan the city of 1 crore 10 lakhs people are in danger. It’s the beginning of the new year and global epidemic outbreak, it’s CORONAVIRUS!
WHAT IS THIS VIRUS
Coronaviruses were first discovered in the 1930s when an acute respiratory infection of domesticated chickens was shown to be caused by infectious bronchitis virus. Its size is 70–100 nanometers, the genome of this virus is different from the RNA family. Human coronaviruses were discovered in the 1960s, which was isolated as a common cold virus at that time. The large number and global range of bat and avian species that host viruses have enabled extensive evolution and dissemination of coronaviruses. Many human coronaviruses have their origin in bats. The human coronavirus NL63 shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus between 1190 and 1449 CE. MERS-CoV, although related to several bat coronavirus species, appears to have diverged from these several centuries ago. The most closely related bat coronavirus and SARS-CoV diverged in 1986. A possible path of evolution of SARS coronavirus and keen bat coronaviruses is that SARS-related coronaviruses coevolved in bats for a long time. The ancestors of SARS-CoV first infected leaf-nose bats of the genus Hipposideridae; subsequently, they spread to horseshoe bats in the species Rhinolophidae, then to Asian palm civets, and finally to humans.
INFECTION IN HUMANS
In past centuries of humans era several virus outbreaks jeopardize the system like SARS , MERS , Spanish Flu. In 2003, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which had begun the prior year in Asia, and secondary cases elsewhere in the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a press release stating that a novel coronavirus identified by a number of laboratories was the causative agent for SARS. The origin host of this SARS virus is bats whereas MERs was originated from camels. The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by H1N1 influenza, around 500 million people were infected and 50 million died.
The mortality rate for Spanish Flu and SARS was 10%
For Common Cold 6%
For Chicken Pox 8.5%
For Rabies 100%
whereas for coronavirus, it's 2%. The question arises of how this virus jumps to several hosts and damages the respiratory system within an incubation period of 2–11 days. During the last few decades, the wild animals' traffic trade is increasing rapidly, in which the animals are legally or illegally trafficked and China is one of the main hubs for this trafficking. Coronavirus belongs to the kingdom of bat viruses.
Pangolin is one of the demanding animals in wild traffic marketing. Researchers have traced that RATG 13 one of the bat viruses is transferred to the pangolin which is the possible intermediate host between humans and bats. Coronavirus is epidemic and can be transferred from surface to surface, its reproduction rate ( rate of infecting one person to another) is 2–3, which seems to be low but more than the SARS and MERS.
Symptoms of coronavirus: Cough, Runny nose, Headache, Fever, chills, Sore throat, Pneumonia.
INDIA
When the whole of China was dealing with the unknown virus on 23 Jan’20 some Indian medical students deport back to India. They took the route from Kochi to Thrissur, Kerala. At the same time, China declared the lockdown for an unknown time to control the virus. One of the returned students from Wuhan has shown some symptoms, 27 Jan’20 the first case of coronavirus in India, soon the samples of the patient arrived at the National Institute of Virology, Pune which is 1200km away from Kerala. 29 Jan ’20 it was confirmed that the sample of the patient has SARS Cov 2 which is Covid-19.
At the end of Jan, 14 countries in America, Italy, Japan registered the same cases for coronavirus. At the starting of Feb, it reached 24 countries around the world with 14 thousand positive cases in China.
In early March 76 countries were under the attack of the coronavirus, more than 80 thousand cases in China and 6 positive cases in India. 10 March the festival of colours “Holi” was celebrated all over the country, people who are unaware of this virus and at 12 march’20 first casualty due to coronavirus in India happened. The Health and Family ministry of India takes action after the first death due to the virus. Dr Harsh Vardhan Minister of Health & Family and the Prime Minister handpicked the Covid -19 task force and doing weekly conferences to manage the brewing crisis. There’s no vaccine for the coronavirus yet and the only way to stop it from spreading is by washing our hands regularly, wearing masks and isolate or maintain social distancing.
The Government Crusade Against Covid-19
Within the month of the first case in Kerala, the number of cases was increasing and coming out in recording numbers from all over the states Maharashtra, Delhi, U.P.
Tedros W.H.O general declared the pandemic in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Handpicked the Covid special force and the Frontline workers take the charge. When the first case was discovered in India there was only one laboratory to test the covid but now there are around 500 laboratories for testing.
19 March ’20 Prime minister declared the first lockdown “Janta Curfew”. Western and Southern states were badly hit by covid, except the eastern states. All the international flights and organisations were shut down. This time of lockdown is used to flatten the growth curve of the patients, to settle and maintain the hospitals quality, providing essentials like hospital beds, ventilators, testing aids, kits to the frontline workers and the health staff. It’s the preparation for the upcoming surge. Within the 4 hours of the notice, the traffic in the most populous country stands still, over a billion people withdraw into their homes. The country of 1.3 billion population locked to their homes! it’s one of the exemplary and bold decisions in history taken by the Prime minister of India.
Police are patrolling the streets and only essential services were allowed, maintaining the social distancing and creating awareness in people. A day into lockdown and the police have another crisis to deal with. Nizamuddin, Delhi 3000 people were staying at a place ( Markaz) without any knowledge of the system and after testing more than a thousand people were found positive. This was very challenging for the government of Delhi.
Arpita Darshani aeronautical engineer connected with MCD and sanitising the crowded places through the drone. Active red zones were quarantined and sanitised.
There’s another challenge waiting for the government i.e. due to the lockdown, the soldiers of our economy ( labours) started to migrate back to their home town. Lockdown stops many businesses and the employees were out of work. It majorly affects the daily wage workers. It was one of the huge labour migrations seen after the independence. This migration affected the economy badly and it’s the failure of the system. Migration caused many casualties, but soon the government provides special trains for the labours. Many celebrities also come in front to help the labours, Sonu Sood facilitates the buses for them.
1 April’20 first case of Dharavi is registered. Dharavi, Mumbai is one of the densely populated slums home to 15 lakh people. It’s a challenge to maintain the social distancing at such places.
But the government still maintained 22 thousand people in institutional quarantine. The state is preparing for the worse; hospitals were building, stadiums and hotels were taken on lease by the government to provide more beds for the upcoming patients.
Prime Minister rallies the nation continuously and on 5 April, whole nation switch of the lights and light the candles, diyas to encourage and provide mental support to the nation and the workers. On 1 May’20, another lockdown for 14 days was declared. All the other states were drastically raising the number of patients whereas Kerala was recovering well. KK Shilaja Health Minister of Kerala working on the three majors which are TRACING, TESTING & QUARANTINING and isolating and giving the best treatments. Through this Kerala State really flatten the growth curve. Kerala success builds on the learning of the previous crisis. At the time of NIPAH, Kerala build the contact tracing mechanism which was used by now, they’ve provided covid council in each hospital and volunteers are actively working on a grass-root level. Taiwan is also one of the best examples as a country to flatten the growing curve of covid 19 without any definite time of lockdown in the country. It’s a lesson for other countries to learn from them.
54 days, 3 consecutive lockdowns and 70 thousand cases in India, which drastically attacked the economic growth. The government declared the fourth lockdown with new rules and regulations, and to health, kick start the country’s frozen economy a stimulus package is offered, this package is 10% of India’s GDP. This package gets a boost and support of Rs. 20 lakh crore. To regain the economic system it’s become important to open the lockdown and learn to live with it (coronavirus).
RNE task force is working on zones and it has been cleared in the strategy of the government to divide the contaminated zones accordingly red, green and orange zone.
Bill and Melinda's Foundation is investing for the past few years in the Indian medical health care system, so India can prepare to work on vaccination not only for their own country but for the whole world.
Serum Institute of India world’s number one vaccine institute has been working with Bharat, Bio e and many other foundations to testing the vaccines.
Now there are 2 million cases have registered in India with a recovery rate of 48.19%. overall 1.9 crore cases have been registered around the world and India is in the top 3 countries now ( Aug’20).
And from this India should now prepare for the future and work on the primary health care system, despite all solid plans and execution, the healthcare system causes the defeat. Given the international implications of India’s public health, it is in the interest of the United States and other industrialised nations to expand cooperation with India in the areas of information exchange, research, personnel training, and improvement of public health facilities. Meanwhile, these countries could send clear signals to the Indians leadership that reform-minded leaders in the forefront of fighting epidemic diseases and supporting public health will be supported.
