Interdependence in corona world

I write this from lockdown — India is on the cusp of coronavirus third and the deadliest stage of community transmission and the government has now called out to citizens to stop all economic activities and self-isolate themselves. This is clearly crucial; never before at least in my living memory has something this small become so globally life-threatening and so out of control, so quickly. 

It was only in January that we got the first real news about the novel virus, which jumped from animals from humans, and was taking lives in China. We saw images of forced incarceration; millions of businesses and homes were shut down; hospitals were built overnight and it would have seemed that victory was on hand. It was a blip in the global economy and China would bounce back. Business was as usual. But then, so quickly, the virus moved to make new homes — Italy, where things have completely gone out of control, and Iran, where so little is known even today of the sheer extent of toll that this disease is taking. Now the spread is practically universal; most of the world is in lockdown mode. It is completely unbelievable.  

In India, when I write this, there are 3,577 coronavirus cases, with 83 deaths. This pales into insignificance when you consider that Italy has close to 125,000 cases; or that New York on Sunday has over 113,700 confirmed cases and, worse, it’s doubling every six days. It is said these cases in India do not represent the true numbers, because testing is limited. But this is where the real question comes. What should countries like India do, with limited testing facilities and even more limited public health infrastructures? All the evidence is pointing to the fact that as the cases reach community spread, the deaths increase because countries cannot provide the intensive care that is needed.

This is why for Indians the choice is stark — we cannot afford community transmission; we have to contain and to prevent. And, yes, we have to increase our testing capacities, but it is also clear that we will never be able to test adequately once it spreads. So, testing has to be done to identify and isolate. 

We need to know that we have to shut down so that we do not end up spreading the virus, which, we have seen from other countries, gallops exponentially to infect entire populations within days. There is no rulebook on this virus, but what is clear is that the only way to contain it is to break the chain of transmission. This, of course, is tough because it brings economies to a grinding halt. It destroys livelihoods, particularly of the poor and the self-employed — and this again is where we will need governments to step in with social security and access to essentials — so that people can cope and make their way through this never-before global catastrophe. 

But this is not all. We need to use this time to think about some fundamentals — one of which is the issue of global cooperation. There is never a good time for such a pandemic to hit the world — but this, we can safely say, is the worst time possible. There is no global leadership or institution that has the respect and the sagacity to take us through what is clearly a crisis beyond national boundaries. What we have seen in the past few months has been a shameful record of self-interest and self-preservation.

For most of us who work to advocate global cooperation on another existential threat like climate change, this should not be news. But it does shock you that even with such a crisis, which is literally bringing the most powerful countries to their knees, we are not getting together to discuss the global response to the global pandemic. Why? What more can and should we do? I want to discuss this further in the coming weeks.

Then, of course, there is the issue of public health — what coronavirus teaches us (if we care to learn) is that we are only as strong as our weakest link. If there is no access to public health care to all or if public health service is weakened to collapse — as is the case in most of the emerging world (and even in private health care systems of the US) — then we cannot withstand pandemics. It is also not enough to build this capacity within countries because if any region of any country or any country of the world is weak, the contagion will breed there and will spread. For how long will we be able to keep our borders closed? How will this even work?

And this, then, leads to my third question — about the nature of globalisation after corona. Will we learn from the vulnerabilities of our system to make it more robust and invest in local economies and local health systems through global partnerships? Let’s keep discussing this in these tough times.  

The writer is at the Centre for Science and Environment

sunita@cseindia.org

Twitter: @sunitanar