Can Lock Down Actually end the C- virus ?

Yesterday as I wrote the article on the increasing numbers of Corona virus  cases round the world in the last ten days,i was constantly reminded, how India had been proactive enough and had gone in to a Lock down at an early stage .

A lot of people specially on social platforms like Facebook have been writing about the changed conditions and how they can't wait,  for the Lock Down to get over, and them getting back to polluting the world. I was rather hopeful that this was a passing phase myself. 

This of course was, till i actually analysed the figures and found out that lock down or no lock down , the Indian figures had Inflated, at a gradual rate. After the Mosque incident  , the numbers have already hit over 2000 as I write this article . 

Today's topic is of course - Can lock Down really help us end this dreaded disease or are we just delaying the Inevitable ? 

A hard question to answer for sure. To analyse this we need  to look at data from the other countries and the dates, the first case reported . Yesterday we had compared the health care system of Italy with that of India and had found that India lacked big time, when it came to essential Healthcare . As of now at least 50 healthcare workers have been found positive out of the 2000 odd cases (2.5%) . 

Let us have a look at the countries with most Corona virus Cases .

As we can see that United States has the most number of cases ,which is over 200 K, as of now. According to BBC world  almost 245 million are under orders to stay home or are facing orders to stay at home 2/3 of the US states have issued orders for Lock down while the rest has some form of it . A peculiar case in question is that of New York ( Hot bed of Infection)

New York

On 29th march President trump has tweeted and said , that there was no need for a Lock down as he had consulted the State Gpreposterous".

New York governor had opposed any idea of a Lock down and had called it anti american and preposterous . According to him if the New-Yorkers were not allowed to leave the Island that would be considered a lock down.

 He had further stated that there were measures in place that restricted large gatherings and had asked people to stay at home but would not let New York turn in to Wuhan . 

The reasons cited were that it would cause the markets to crash, paralyzing the financial sector. 

He has even threatened to sue the adjoining Rhode Island if It continued to target New Yorkers for breaking Quarantine .  This was Two Days ago on March 29th and the Number of infected in New York were 59000.  Today it is 83948 . An increase of almost 42.28 % infected in last three days . 

It is quite evident that while the governor has chosen economics over the ill-effects of the disease, it is the citizens of New York who will have to pay the Price . 

Spain 

Spain went in to a lock down on March 15th after there were around 8000 confirmed cases and 300 dead.  Till date almost 900,000 people have lost their jobs , as the country reals under a severe lock Down . 

Almost fifteen days later the total number of cases are around 110,238 with almost 10,000 dead.  What is important to note that according to Spanish health ministry for the last couple of days the number of severely infected being brought in have reduced  and perhaps the curve will flatten from here off.

Why the example of Spain is important? Spain was one of the countries that imposed a lock down early on and with over 200 fines in place for breaking lock down and has one of the most strict lock downs in place. Yet, the cases have surged and deaths occurred. 

What is important to note is that the lock down has been able to control the surge, unlike what is happening in New York. 

With the above two cases, it can be seen that Lock down can be partially effective, In fact  it helps in slowing down the infection rate. It is however  not a  guarantee to stop the virus from spreading. What it guarantees, is, that it will slow it down, giving precious time to find a cure . 

In case of India, we have been lucky, and if we look at the recent events like the Delhi mosque incident , It is evident, that while it has contributed to a slight spread of the disease,we cannot blame them for a national breakout . The virus will find a way to spread . Spain tried and failed ,New York gave up. Both are suffering and Spain as a 'nation' has fought the virus. 

The fact remains that our understanding of the spread is limited, and we really haven't been able to pinpoint the exact conditions under which it transmits.  A recent example is that of Singer Kanika Kapoor who despite meeting over 266 people failed to infect even a single one of them.  Where we have failed is to treat India as  our own nation specially the Mosque people.

It would  indeed be wishful thinking that once the Lock Down ends , Corona will end.  We need to be careful in the coming times and perhaps investing in a good Mask would be order of the Day.

The Spread of Covid -19 : Why you should be prepared ?

The World
The first case of the Covid -19 or the corona virus was first discovered in China. A 55 year old person from the Hubei province was pronounced patient zero. the Date was Nov 17th , 2019 . A formal confirmation was given for the same on December 7.

After this cases of pneumonia started to emerge in Wuhan, symptom resembling viral Pneumonia. Further tests from the lower respiratory tract indicated Corona virus.

 This was four months ago .

These are  the statistics as were seen 11 days ago, compared to today at the time this article was being written. In the last 11 days, the number of infected, grew from 275,864 to 882, 068 ( almost 220% increase . Similarly, the active cases grew from 172,554 to 652,865 ( almost 278% increase ) . the number of fatalities were no different, and, rose from 11398 to 44136 (288% increase) .

The number of patients cured during this period was almost 101% and grew from 91912 to 185067.

Let us have a look at the percentage change during the period

Compared to the number of infected, the percentage of active cases, as on April 1st rose to 74% as compared to 62 % on march 19th . Similarly the fatality rate showed an increase of 1% and rose to 5% from 4.1 % .
the percentage cured dropped to 20% as against 33 % on march 19th .  This is an important percentage, as while the infected grew almost 220% during the period , the Healthcare was able to cure almost equal amount of patients, as it had cured till march 19th since Nov 17th /Dec 7th 2019.

Although, this may sound like a great achievement. let us not forget that there is a jump of almost 300% in the last 11 odd days, and this will only compound, as we move forward if proper precautions are not taken to flatten the curve (The USA is already looking at 100k to 250k deaths )

India

Ever since the Novel Corona virus took over the world , the world eyes have been on India. Firstly due to its proximity to the epicenter of the virus.Secondly, because of the huge population (1.34 billion). India has been rather vigilant in regards to the C virus, and, was wise enough to impose right interventions, at the right time, up till now.The sealing of borders , cancelling almost all visas , closing schools and colleges and follow up of suspected cases/ monitoring adherence of quarantine , has led to one of the lowest number of cases for such a high density of population .

On march 19, 2020 , there were a total of  just 236 cases, of which 209 were active , 23 cured and 4 fatalities had occurred .
The figures, have however changed significantly in the last 11 days and India crossed the 1637 mark of which 1466 were active cases , 133 cured and 38 deaths .
When we look at these figures we may feel that these were bound to happen and there hasn't been a significant change . If I said that there was a 600% rise in cases , another 600% rise in active cases .a rise of 478% in cured cases and almost 900 % rise in fatalities, would you be alarmed?

Let us be honest here - India has been under a severe lock down since 22nd of March , that is to be held till 15th April 2020.
These numbers have increased, despite people following the social distancing and all the government directions .
To understand figures better India had 360 total cases on 22nd march (Lock down starts ) that grew to 1397 on 31st march 2020 . 240 cases were diagnosed within a single day.

So has India finally hit stage 3 which is the community spread . This can only be said in the coming days . Whats important is to note that the number of cases India had 11 days ago,were added within a day.

The western Media has often criticized India to be hiding its actual numbers . According to one tabloid the the total number of testings that were done till march 18th were 11500. The argument was simply that either people infected were under reported or people who had the disease had not been detected . While personally I do not agree with the argument, what they have been correct about is the other statistics .

 The vulnerable 
The population that has been found vulnerable or as high risk target groups  are older persons or with preexisting medical conditions such as high blood pressure , heart disease ,lung disease etc . India according to a report has almost 122 million people who fall in these categories and this is compounded with an overstretched health care system . While the number of beds per 1000 people is 0.7 , the last known figure for ventilators stood at 40,000.

We all know Italy has been suffering severely from the virus and a comparison of the healthcare will help us understand better why India needs to be more vigilant in tracking and quarantining.

Comparison of Healthcare and other sectors between India and Italy

Benchmark	India	Italy
Population	135 crore	6 crore
GDP size (nominal)2020	$3.202 trillion	$1.989 trillion
Nominal Per Capita Income (2020 estimates)	$2,338	$32,947
Health care expenditure (%of GDP), WHO data	3.65%	9%
Density of medical doctor per 10000 person	7	40
Total Hospitals	23852 (2018)	1063 (2017)
Health expenditure per Capita, PPP (Annual)	$241	$3427
First corona case reported	29 January 2020	29  January 2020

Looking at the data it is quite evident that Italy as a country, has a much stronger health care system and yet we know what happened to the country . What's important here to note is the date of the first Corona case reported. While Italy held a  '' Hug A Chinese'' Campaign , India sealed borders and took precautions. 

India has been careful till now and yet, the vulnerability of India is quite evident. A poor health care system may not be able to handle a full blown outbreak like Italy. Right now India  is under a lock Down and perhaps sweeping up all the loose cases that would have led to further contamination/spread. 

India needs to use this lock down period to really vamp up its healthcare system. There has been  an active buzz for collection of funds to fight the disease and hopefully the funds will be used to create better medical facilities and purchase equipment in case an outbreak occurs . 

The coming days are going to be crucial and all communities need to come together and fight this menace together. We as Indians are sitting on a heap of dry hay and even a small amber can burn us up , making things go out of control .  

Can Indian Summer beat the C virus ?

For a long time now, it is being said that the Novel Corona virus  cant survive high temperatures. The Indian government and people have been hoping that this holds true and India is at less risk of the C virus spread because of the rising temperatures.
However there is some bad news for people that have been hoping this to be true as no association as such has been found between the spread of the virus and the temperature.  What studies have indicated is that there have been significant community outbreaks along restricted latitudes , temperature and humidity, thus behaving like a seasonal respiratory virus . A study done by the students of various universities  actually collected the data and tried relating the incidents to the temperature on a world wide scale.
The data in question was curated from John Hopkin University done on a day to day basis of the Covid-19 cases world wide. the cases were then compiled on a month to month basis for each country, namely January , February and March .

The study then collected the monthly average temperatures in each of the Covid -19 positive cases and drew a correlation between the average monthly temperatures in these countries and total monthly incidents of the cases that was found negative . What it means was that there was no real relation found between the temperatures and number of cases . The study clearly mentions that to create or relate any evidence of direct relation between temperature and cases more data is required .

Let us understand how the cases have changed according to change in temperatures in the last three months. If we have a look at the figure above, Picture one indicates the number of Covid -19 cases . It is quite evident that while the lower hemisphere has been rather hot, the epicenter remains in  Wuhan , China .

February doesn't show any significant changes either although a rise in number of cases in China is seen . The world temperatures according to second graph remains very similar to temperature graph from January

. It is the March spread that really makes the picture quite clear as to how the virus doesn't seem to be related with temperature and has spread mostly based on community patterns along a north east west Direction. Countries that fall in this region show similar weather patterns . What is indicative is that the study is inconclusive when it comes to relating the spread of the disease with temperature rise.

Coming to India  we have seen that the number of cases have risen gradually from January to  March. What is interesting to note is that these cases albeit in the beginning were all imported and were brought in from Covid-19 affected countries . The Local spread is still gradual and while the coming months are going to be extremely hot , focus on Interventions will play an Important Part in Controlling the Virus.

Corona Days

Dear Readers, 

This is just to bring you to update about what i am doing now a days with my life . Well for those of you who had been following the channel regularly , would be pleased to know that i finally made through the allied services. Life has been rather busy and i still wish that i had put in a little more effort to clear the IAS.  I am still planning to give another attempt  in a year or so. I am sorry that for the last year , I haven't uploaded any videos. Making videos is rather time consuming so I thought maybe I will get in touch with you here. 

Any ways today i really wanted to discuss the Novel corona virus. I know that most of you have all the  information and you are making best use of this time studying hard for the exams . Since there is no movement and sounds , i think this time can be best utilized if one is sincere and is willing to go that extra mile .

We all can notice that the earth around us is going quieter each day. Have you noticed how there is a slight ring in the ears as if they are trying to listen to that noise, the sound of birds in the Morning chirping and flying further then they used to. The sky clearer and the air breathable . Of course those who live in peaceful cities these are daily events , but for those of us living in cities like Delhi and Metros , these are things that the heart yearns for. 

While I may sound as if i am appreciating that the country has come under the spate of the Virus ,It is important to understand  that as honest citizens of the country we need to stand by the Government. We have to have faith in the whole Idea as Civil service aspirants and look at what the government is doing from an objective point of view.

As an aspirant we need to analyse, why and what steps are being taken, and what will eventual outcome be. Yesterday, we saw the mass exodus of labor and this might have turned the tables on  all the efforts that were made till date. I am not here to delve in to politics but this might just be the end game of letting the virus enter the remotest of villages that were free of it till now. Not to mention the unavailability of medical aid in those places . 

As an administrator what would you have done? If you were to come across 500 Odd people that were walking towards their villages . What strategy would you adopt . Do write in comments and let me know . 

It so happened that i had to deal with such exodus last night and while i and extremely tired i made sure that arrangements were made for their stay . Food and accommodation along with first aid were a priority. Any signs of sick or disease were segregated , however remember that you are dealing with emotional people and its best not to separate families.  This is a unique situation as you have to take a call since the disease is communicable. Do you risk the whole family getting it or do you separate the family ? 

The only way is to make them understand the risks involved. Speaking to them was an emotional experience as most of them had no clue why the country was shut, why they were suddenly out of work and how a simple cold and cough could kill them. Those of them who knew a little bit , just shook their heads and said this too shall pass, Modi ji will take care of it . 

Later on as i sank in my bed, it occurred to me that this country fortunately has a very strong leadership and no matter what the opposition says or does , there are people who still think about the welfare of the state before their own . 

So friends this is what i wanted to share with you and do let me know abut the question that i asked you . think over it . I don't expect  you to follow my example. just imagine and yourself to be the District magistrate in such a situation and solve it . you Can even Do what the DM of Noida did , sent in his leave application !!!

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