India coronavirus dispatch: Re-imagining our economic choices going forward

From cooperation between Union and state governments, to reimagining our economic choices, and how coronavirus attacks the human body step by step - read these and more in today's India dispatch

Here’s a round-up of important coronavirus-related articles from across Indian publications — from cooperation between Union and state governments, to reimagining our economic choices, and how coronavirus attacks the human body step by step.

Expert Speak

Why it is critical to cocoon the elderly and the vulnerable: All steps you want a Covid-19 patient to take in order to prevent the spread of the infection and you ask the elderly and vulnerable household members to practise in order to avoid getting infected. Read here to understand why the elderly and vulnerable should strictly stay at home for the next several months until after the epidemic is over.

Citizens Under Lockdown

Why housing Covid-19 patients in cancer care hospitals can lead to a health disaster: With patients suffering from various forms of cancer being immunocompromised due to chemotherapy and radiation, several public health experts argue that having wards for Covid-19 patients in cancer care hospitals is dangerous. What’s worrying is that families of cancer patients say that they have been turned away from treatment at government-run cancer care hospitals. Read more here.

In Punjab villages, Covid-19 is dissolving some caste divides among Sikhs: Caste discrimination is rampant in Punjab, even though Sikhism preaches equality. Dalits are often not allowed to touch vessels used for religious ceremonies at gurdwaras. However, the pandemic appears to have worn down these caste practices, even if temporarily, across Sangrur, Mansa and Faridkot districts. Read more here.

Online university exams a ‘remote possibility’ as UGC officials highlight host of concerns: Online examinations across universities in India seem to be a remote possibility, as the University Grants Commission (UGC) thinks India doesn’t have the required wherewithal to conduct them. Most central universities have had to postpone their final exams due to the restrictions brought in to curb the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. How will the students cope? Read more here.

Long Reads

Coping with the coronavirus pandemic: Are Indians safe? Following the devastation caused by the massive dislocation in international business, first due to China’s reduced trade with the rest of the world and now because of the shutdowns in much of North America and western Europe, the economic fallout of the pandemic is likely to be severe. Some commentators are already talking of a contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) on the same scale as the one that happened during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Read here to understand why India must act now and why cooperation between Union and state governments, increased testing and evaluating the social and economic consequences of lockdowns are crucial.

Opinion

Re-imagining our economic choices: The pace and volumes with which we can move across territories and transport the virus have deepened our fragility. Perhaps it is time to shift from indices of economic growth and speed (such as rates of GDP growth) to those that build on lives and living conditions. According to the author, this pandemic will test our imagination. Read here to understand why.

Covid-19 crisis can help us rework relationship between city and village: In the knowledge era, with an emphasis on capability and capacity building among rural youth in terms of holistic education, appropriate technology and enhanced livelihood, there is a possibility for a more balanced distribution of income as well as population. This would, however, need knowledge bridges to be built between cities and villages, and the creation of an ecosystem that has been conceptualised as a “cillage” — a synergistic combination of city and village. Read here to understand this concept and its implementation.

To meet world average, India must add at least 1 million doctors to healthcare force: Creating more doctors, nurses, hospitals and medical equipment stock is not only necessary for our health, but also for our economic health. Read here to understand why a manifold public investment in healthcare infrastructure is an effective, efficient and equitable way to stimulate economic growth in the short and medium terms.

Managing Covid-19

India is failing on a crucial Covid-19 front, keeping mild cases away from hospitals: This segregation of milder and more severe Covid-19 patients has been recognised in several countries as crucial to the fighting against Covid-19. Grouping both mild and severe cases in same hospitals carries the risk of aggravating the condition of the less-severe patients, endangering hospitals’ health workers, and increasing the burden on hospitals, whose limited resources would be stretched beyond capacity. Read more here.

Why Mumbai’s current strategy to beat Covid-19 is not good enough: The three essential components to tide over a crisis successfully are to have a well-defined and experienced team, a well-thought-out and well-implemented strategy, and well-trained and well-equipped crew. Read here to understand why these three prongs still remain to be strengthened in Mumbai.

Understanding Covid-19

How coronavirus attacks, step by step: It is still a ‘novel’ coronavirus that causes Covid-19, but the emerging picture has given researchers clues about how to target it. Read here to understand its structure, how it infects, and the behaviours scientists hope to block.

Why India’s stated policy on hydroxychloroquine makes no sense: The decision to suggest hydroxychloroquine sulphate is a preventive drug hasn’t been without its downsides — already, patients of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, who need to take the drug for years, are unable to find them in pharmacies because there has been a surge in healthcare workers taking them as a Covid-19 prophylactic. Those with plans to perform clinical trials may also experience shortages since they will need large quantities of the drug. Read here to know why India’s policy towards this drug is flawed.

Podcast

How did Covid-19 break down India’s food supply chain – and how can it be fixed? What role does agriculture play as we think about the economic consequences of Covid-19? And what can India do to ensure that challenges we’ve experienced in the past 21 days do not continue, even if the lockdown does? Listen to this conversation between former IAS officer Pravesh Sharma and professor Mekhala Krishnamurthy to understand.