Bilateral relations are now deepening, impacting human lives at the basic level. After agriculture, it is shared COVID-19 management protocols
A special flight equipped with medical equipment and advanced technological treatments for Coronavirus flew to India from Tel Aviv last week. Also on board were defence and security experts as well as Israeli diplomats returning to their embassies and consulates in the region. The Israeli team will join hands with researchers in India to develop a rapid testing solution for COVID-19. Dozens of sophisticated ventilators, which were loaded onto the special flight before take-off, made the name of the mission that much more meaningful: Breathing Space.
Israel went out of its way to approve the export and transfer of these ventilators to India, while both countries continue to fight against the spread of the virus. Israel’s exceptional gesture was a welcome “thank you” to India, which just a few months ago sent medicine and other essential diagnostic equipment, in severe global shortage at the time, to Israel. In this way, Israel and India successfully transformed this unprecedented global pandemic into an opportunity to assist one another and enhance their relations.
The Israel-India relationship has improved dramatically over the past several years. It’s hard to believe that just three decades ago, Indian passports were valid “for every country except Israel.” Today, India has become one of our most significant friendships in the Asian region. The scope of mutual trade between the two countries has grown from approximately $200 million in 1992 to some $4 billion in 2018.
Since former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s first historic visit to India in 2003, Israeli and Indian Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers have enjoyed a host of bilateral visits and discussions. One of the first discussions Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi held upon entering his new role was with his Indian counterpart, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar.
Israel’s Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Benny Gantz, too, had a word with Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, expressing hope that the strong bilateral ties between the two countries would contribute significantly to the global efforts in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. These are just some of the indicators of the surge that has occurred in relations between the two countries since diplomatic ties were fully established in 1992.
This upward trend has yielded success in other fields as well. Although it’s difficult to imagine direct flights while living under the cloud of COVID-19, Air India’s direct flight between New Delhi and Tel Aviv, inaugurated two years ago, minimises flight duration by flying over Saudi Arabia. This contributes towards the normalisation of Israel’s ties with the Arab world and as such, assists Israel in achieving its strategic goal of improving its relations with the region.
Other flights — El Al to Mumbai, Arkia flights to Goa and Cochin — are an important bridge between Israel and India. This bridge is further strengthened by a visa relief policy for Indian citizens, which saw the number of Indian tourists visiting Israel grow from 16,000 in 2000 to over 70,000 in 2018.
One of India’s most critical national security challenges is the provision of food security to its immense population. Israel’s Foreign Ministry has consistently invested a tenth of the Agency for International Development’s (MASHAV) budget into India for several years now. This has financed the establishment of more than 28 “Excellency Centres” across the many States that make up India. These centres serve as agricultural “demonstration” farms, introducing Israeli experts and innovative Israeli technologies to Indian farmers.
During his last visit to India in January 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escorted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his home State of Gujarat. In an exceptionally moving moment, hundreds of farmers rushed to meet them and share their personal stories. One after another, they recounted how their fields’ crop yields had improved by a hundred per cent following their training at Israel’s Excellence Centres.
Relations between Israel and India clearly don’t just exist between Governments but also between societies. The Israel-India relationship has permeated all elements of Indian society, including that of the 650 million Indian citizens who make a living from agriculture and who represent half of the workforce in India.
Israel’s contributions have also risen to prominence in fields ranging from health, security, industry and more. Most critical on our shared agenda, however, is water and Israel is uniquely placed to provide solutions to the critical water shortage issue that India faces. Both countries share a deep and mutual appreciation for the benefits that their joint collaboration brings them at the community level.
Under the leadership of Narendra Modi, India is assuming its role as a regional and world power and our diplomacy has succeeded in showing India the many advantages that can come from strengthening its ties with Israel. The Foreign Ministry is determined to cultivating its ties with India to ensure that our relations continue to thrive in the future.
(The writer is Deputy Director General for Asia and the Pacific at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Healthcare interventions that are scaled up can only be sustainable when women are put at the centre of development and caring for their community
When the Karuna Trust, the Karnataka-based not-for-profit organisation, undertook the responsibility of managing the primary health centre (PHC) at Wakka, a village in Tirap district, Arunachal Pradesh, many were surprised. The location was remote and access was difficult. There was also an additional fear of insurgency. But Dr H Sudarshan, the founder and secretary of the trust, was undeterred as he wanted to reach the under-served at all costs.
His confidence stemmed from the fact that the trust had successfully managed 26 poorly-run and derelict PHCs in its home State of Karnataka. Many of the PHCs were in remote and difficult locations. If the public-private partnership (PPP) with the Government to provide healthcare to the marginalised population in rural areas could work in difficult conditions in the southern Indian State, there was no doubt in his mind that this successful health intervention could be scaled up in the northeastern State as well. Such was his determination that Dr Sudarshan remained unfazed even after he was accosted by a group of insurgents in Wakka, which is predominantly a tribal village, and asked to pay a sizeable sum as “protection money” if he wanted to keep the PHC open. Despite being threatened that he would not be able to work without their support, Dr Sudarshan refused to succumb to their demand. He was convinced that the trust, which believed in a community-based and people-oriented approach, would be able to make the PHC function without paying any “protection money.”
And he was proved right. A couple of weeks later, when the same insurgents who had demanded money realised that Dr Sudarshan and his team were not giving up, they came to him seeking healthcare advice for their wives. People in the village needed healthcare badly but the lack of a PHC had made it difficult for them to access proper services. Once they realised that the trust had come to provide quality healthcare, the community, including the insurgents, readily supported the team.
In fact, so overwhelming was the support that local women healthcare workers were motivated to report for duty on time daily. Under ordinary circumstances, this may not have been considered a big achievement, but when the trust team saw that the women health workers crossed narrow, swaying bridges across deep rivers and gorges, and also resorted to swinging on a rope to reach the PHC, they were impressed by their commitment. It was this dedication of the health workers that helped the trust to bring eight more PHCs in nine districts under its management.
But can all successful health interventions be scaled up? What are the processes that need to be followed so that these interventions are sustainable? Should a health intervention be scaled up just because it has achieved success as a pilot?
If the trust’s journey from managing one PHC in Karnataka to managing 71 PHCs in seven States, including Arunachal Pradesh, is any indication, clearly the answer is “yes.” Economic growth can be meaningful only if it brings greater benefits to a greater number of people over a wider geographical area. This should happen quickly, equitably and be lasting.
However, it has been seen that women are often excluded from this growth process and their role and contribution is overlooked by policymakers. Health interventions that are scaled up can only be sustainable when women are put at the centre of development. An excellent example of this is the Home-Based Newborn and Child Care (HBNCC) model developed by the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), a not-for-profit body headed by Dr Abhay Bang and Dr Rani Bang. Based in Gadchiroli, a predominantly tribal and Naxal-affected district in Maharashtra, the NGO has proven that tribal women are capable of saving lives of newborns. It would be wrong to judge their capabilities just because of their lack of formal education, their traditional attire and customs. The bejewelled Gonda tribal women in Gadchiroli have shown that although they follow traditional customs by wearing customary silver jewellery from head to toe, this does not come in the way of saving lives.
The HBNCC intervention, which sensitised and trained these women, has demonstrated that they are equally competent in recognising and identifying life-threatening symptoms in newborns and administering life-saving injections. So, it is not what is being done which is significant but how it is done. Here, too, the crucial factor is the respect given to the women during the intervention.
The biggest factor in their success in reducing neonatal mortality is the women empowering model followed by them. Just training the village’s women health workers to provide home-based newborn and childcare helped to reduce infant mortality from 121 for 1,000 live births to 30 within six years of its implementation. The key to the success of this intervention was to ensure women became partners and not merely passive recipients. This underlines the need for partnerships as innovators do not have the capacity for upscaling. The SEARCH experience has shown that women are the right partners for scaling up healthcare at the grassroots through Self-Help Groups and community-based organisations. SEARCH is at present working with 13,000 tribal people in 48 villages in Gadchiroli. Its HBNCC model, adopted by the Government for its National Health Mission, is also being used by 12 countries.
This underscores not just the importance of engaging people and community-based organisations in health interventions but also shows how ensuring gender equality is paramount to its sustainability.
Equally important is the creation of social values by ending discrimination against girls. Besides, the infrastructure, the content and the process, too, have to be empowering for women. Clearly, the Gadchiroli model seems to have worked out how to adapt to local situations. It has been replicated in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and seven African countries.
The Karuna Trust model, too, is being used to address gaps in remote centres through innovations in telemedicine, health insurance, integration of mental health and has reached 1.3 million people.
The Ekjut health model developed by Dr Prasanta Tripathy and Dr Nirmala Nair is another success story of how interventions centred on empowering women can bring sustainable change. Ekjut began its participatory and learning action (PLA)-based intervention with just 20 women in three tribal and remote villages around Chakradharpur in West Singhbhum district in Jharkhand.
The high maternal and newborn mortality in these areas led to their being chosen for the pilot programme. During these monthly PLA meetings, women are trained to identify problems like the two main causes of maternal and child death: Women delaying their need for professional care and their inability to find an appropriate healthcare facility. They then discussed how to implement practical solutions and evaluate their effectiveness.
The impact of the programme began to be seen as the women overcame their fear, shyness and patriarchal barriers to step out of their homes. Over the next five years, it was scaled to eight districts and involved over 20,000 women. By translating their newly-found knowledge into action, women were able to bring about a 20 per cent reduction in maternal deaths and a 30 per cent reduction in the neonatal deaths in 600 villages.
Ekjut now provides support to the NHM in scaling up its model in all 24 districts in Jharkhand. Its PLA model has also been scaled in 17 districts in Madhya Pradesh. In 2016, the Central Government began using the Ekjut model to bring down maternal and neonatal deaths in eight Indian States. Government frontline workers trained by Ekjut are using the PLA method in 40,000 villages all over the country to empower women to take charge.
However, challenges in scaling up successful interventions still exist. The lack of community participation is a big hurdle in scaling up interventions as was seen in the resistance to a nationwide roll-out of the weekly iron-folic acid supplementation programme for adolescents. Another impediment is the unavailability of requisite financial resources and trained personnel. Funds for research and monitoring and evaluating data are often negligible. Greater dissemination of successful scaled-up interventions, strategic partnerships with other stakeholders and integration with Government programmes will be useful in overcoming some of these challenges.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
Until a viable vaccine is found, finding new ways to cope with the unexpected seems to be our only recourse to brace against the unexpected challenges thrown by the virus
Life is not the way it’s supposed to be…. The way you cope is what makes the difference — Virginia Satir.
When the famous US family therapist Virginia Satir talked about coping with life’s adversities, she was unlikely to have had images of a pandemic like COVID-19 in mind. But her words have a grim relevance today as we learn to live with the unforeseen and unprecedented situation caused by the Coronavirus. A recent telephone survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), through its Data Innovation Centre, documents several insightful findings about public behaviour and the health and economic outcomes of both the virus and the lockdown imposed by the Government to curb its transmission.
The findings explain the surge as most respondents, while adhering to safety protocols, admit that they took advantage of the “unlock” phase to step out of the house when there was no pressing need. At the same time, the economic trough has been gloomy even after opening up with a high percentage of the workforce losing jobs or facing salary cuts. This despite a majority going back to work in the “unlock” phase.
The survey, titled, The Delhi Coronavirus Telephone Survey (DCVTS), was undertaken in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) in three rounds, between April 3 and 6; April 23 and 26; and June 15 and 23 respectively. The most notable finding during the first round of the survey was the successful communication by the Government of the dangers associated with the virus and the consequent need for a stringent lockdown — nearly 87 per cent of the respondents asserted their support for the lockdown to be extended for two more weeks beyond its original end date of April 14, notwithstanding the hardships caused by it.
The study also throws light on other aspects of dealing with COVID-19, including the level of awareness among the people about the risks and symptoms of the disease; their threat perceptions in terms of the chances of contracting the virus and their attitudes relating to mandated safety protocols such as hand hygiene, social distancing and the use of masks. In addition, it highlights the impact of the lockdown on the incomes and livelihoods of all sections of society.
Pandemic makes inroads: With the virus making nascent inroads into the country during late March and early April, it was important to explore awareness levels about the disease and the possible prevention measures among the general public. A strange paradox that emerged in the first round was the dissonance between people’s perceptions about the dangers posed by the virus and the possibility they envisaged of getting infected themselves.
While almost 95 per cent of them averred that the virus was highly dangerous, as many as 65 per cent of them did not expect themselves or any of their household members to get infected. This sense of confidence in the ability to sidestep the infection was obviously put to the test after the easing of the lockdown in June, which has been followed by a massive surge in positive cases in Delhi and the adjoining areas.
Immediate impact of the lockdown: With a complete shutdown of all activities and commercial establishments starting March 25, the first phase of the NCAER survey indicated that 25 per cent of the rural and 33 per cent of the urban residents suffered shortages of essential items, including food supplies, cooking fuel and even medicines. Subsequently, however, while shortages of essential supplies somewhat eased when the respondents were interviewed during the second round of the survey in the third week of April, people’s worries had now squarely shifted to the economic impact of the lockdown. The predominant concern during this period was the decline in incomes and loss of livelihoods due to the closure of offices and businesses.
During DCVTS-2, an overwhelming majority of the respondents — 82 per cent —reported loss of income or wages, especially daily wage workers and employees in small businesses. Further, among these, 72 per cent of casual workers complained that their incomes and wages had suffered “very much”, indicating that the brunt of the economic distress was borne by workers from the informal sector. Even among the salaried class, 38 per cent of the workers either received truncated salaries or were relieved of their jobs.
Interestingly, and perhaps as a saving grace, farmers did not seem to be overly affected. Only 34 per cent reported a drop in incomes during the lockdown. This because most of them were busy harvesting the Rabi crop and doing preparations for the Kharif crop during this period.
Focus on safety measures during “unlock” Phase I: The most conspicuous results of the NCAER’s DCVTS were observed in the third round, which virtually stood at the cusp between the lockdown and phased “unlocking.” Characterised by the opening up of a range of commercial activities and establishments, this period in early June was critical to determine how far people were adhering to safety measures against the disease. Some level of complacency was witnessed after the “unlocking” as 73 per cent of the respondents reported going out for some reason during the period of one week prior to the survey.
More worryingly, as high as 61 per cent of the respondents above the age of 60 years had ventured out of their homes despite the advisory to elderly people to remain indoors as they fall in the high-risk category. Overall, there was a general adherence to the precautionary measures specified by the Government and health authorities, with 95 per cent of the surveyed people affirming that they were wearing masks or face coverings while going out; 66 per cent reported frequent use of hand sanitisers; and only 0.8 per cent of the respondents claimed that they did not follow any precaution at all.
Economic repercussions of COVID-19: In what could signify a gradual economic revival post the lockdown, 78 per cent of the households reported that their members had resumed going to the workplace in the second and third weeks of June. But the trajectory of loss of livelihoods and incomes for daily wage workers and small businesses reported in the second round of the survey continued in the third round, too.
Thus, DCVTS-III showed that more than 70 per cent of the households relying on wage work and business as the main source of income suffered extensive loss of earnings. A large section of these households was also compelled to borrow money to counter financial distress. In fact, medium and small businesses have literally withered under the onslaught of the economic earthquake unleashed by the virus, with 52 per cent of them reporting suspension of activities during the lockdown in May and June and 12 per cent shutting down completely.
Have welfare measures mitigated financial suffering? Apart from documenting the adverse impact on incomes and wages, the third round of DCVTS also focussed on the role of Government programmes and measures to ameliorate the suffering of the marginalised sections. It was found that a large number of households — 58 per cent of the total surveyed and 61 per cent in Delhi alone — were given extra rations through the use of Aadhaar cards and e-coupons. About 35 per cent received cash transfers from the Government in May and June, taken together. While most of the fund transfers were achieved through Jan Dhan accounts, the Government also used other schemes like the Ujjwala Yojana and PM Kisan programme to offer financial relief to the affected households.
So what does the future portend? The results of three rounds of the NCAER survey could offer some insights to policy makers for negotiating the rough road ahead as we brace to meet the persistent challenges of a virus that refuses to go away. Until a viable vaccine is found, possibly by next year, turning to Virginia Satir’s practical advice to find new ways of coping with the unexpected seems to be our only recourse.
WHO has praised Asia’s biggest slum for containing COVID-19 through community engagement and fast protocols
From being a major cause for concern to being praised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for successfully containing the community spread of the Coronavirus, Asia’s largest slum Dharavi, with a population density of 2.27 lakh per sq km, has come a long way. Along with Italy, Spain and South Korea, Mumbai’s slum cluster has shown that even if the outbreak is very intense and happens in an under-serviced and infrastructure-scarce settlement, it can still be brought back under control. All it needs is a synchronised human drill. Dharavi is indeed a test case of how resource-deprived zones can fight the virus, too. Its 6.5 lakh residents live in an area of just 2.5 km, which challenges the golden mantras for fighting the pandemic, namely social distancing, frequent hand-washing and living in well-ventilated spaces. A minimum of seven to eight people live together in small, 100 square feet dwellings and queue up for water each day as piped water at home is a luxury they can only dream of. A whopping 80 per cent of the slum-dwellers are forced to use community toilets and fresh air and good ventilation is a rarity as homes and factories co-exist in single buildings lining the slum’s narrow lanes. Yet, on July 7, the slum reported only one Coronavirus case and till July 10, the number of cases was just 2,359, a far cry from what was expected when the first case was discovered in Dharavi on April 1. In fact, Western Press editorials had written off Dharavi as a time bomb waiting to explode.
So what was it that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) did to turn the tide of the pandemic? Because even as the rest of Mumbai suffered and became a hotspot, Dharavi defied all logic and did not turn into a Corona cesspool. The BMC decided to take the problem by its horns and involved the community in its chase of the virus. It set up teams to reach out to families and they reached out to almost seven lakh people in Dharavi, tracking signs and symptoms and tracing contacts of the infected. Between April 1 and July 10, a whopping 47,500 households were scanned by doctors and private clinics. More than 3.6 lakh people were screened, out of which 14,970 people were screened in mobile vans, thus supplementing the work of overworked health centres. As many as 8,246 senior citizens were surveyed and as the key to containing any pandemic is rigorous testing, the BMC also ran fever clinics to let people get themselves checked without fear. They also checked people’s oxygen saturation levels and if they were below 95 per cent, they were taken to quarantine centres. The logic was that this was faster than testing and in any case it was not possible to test everyone. As it is, they were only able to test 13,500 people. The BMC also employed 350 local private practitioners and if someone was found to have symptoms, they could volunteer to be quarantined even without getting tested. Since home quarantine was never an option in Dharavi, local clubs and schools were converted into quarantine facilities where free food and health check-ups were provided. As many as 2,000 elderly were taken to protective quarantine and only critically-ill patients were admitted to hospitals while 90 per cent patients were treated inside the slum. All private hospitals were taken onboard and acquired for treatment, including Sai Hospital, Prabhat Nursing Home and Family Care. A 200-bed hospital was also set up in a record 14 days. What Dharavi did was that it focussed on community engagement. Politicians and NGOs provided thousands of free meals and rations while Bollywood actors and businessmen donated gear, oxygen cylinders, gloves, masks, medicines and ventilators. Dharavi also followed the basic rules of testing, tracing, isolating and treating all those who were sick and hence, broke the chain of transmission and suppressed the virus. And to make sure that the lockdown worked, free meals and rations were provided to residents trapped at home without work and a source of income. It’s not surprising then that Dharavi has turned out to be a beacon of hope for densely populated cities in poor nations and Delhi and other cities struggling with the pandemic could well learn a lesson or two from it. Human endeavour is the biggest cure.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
India requires a labour law structure that is stable and secure rather than one which changes every few years. The Govt must strike a balance and implement investor-friendly reforms
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fault lines, vulnerabilities and infirmities that exist in India’s labour law and policy framework. On the surface, the country’s legal structure boasts of 200 State laws and around 45 Central rules that govern the employer-employee relationship. India is a labour surplus country with 47 million unemployed below the age of 24 years and 12-13 million youths joining the labour market every year. Almost 93 per cent of India’s labour force works in the unorganised sector, the majority of whom are unskilled and poorly educated. Nearly 90 per cent of India’s estimated 47 crore workforce is not benefitting from the existing labour law provisions.
But the irony is that the multitude of laws have neither uplifted the socio-economic conditions of the workers nor have they incentivised economic development. This because they “over regulate” and create legal hurdles at every stage of running an enterprise.
Last year, the Union Government drafted four labour codes as part of a process to streamline these laws. They were the Code on Wages (approved by Parliament), the Industrial Relations Code, Code on Social Security and Welfare and the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions. These codes will subsume within themselves various legislations related to specific areas of labour law. The Government’s move guarantees transparency and accountability. But this is also an opportune time to revisit these laws in the light of the health, safety and livelihood challenges faced by the workers.
Another striking feature of the Indian labour landscape is that the proportion of informal workers in the total participating labour force is a staggering 90 per cent. In other words, 90 per cent of the work force does not have job security or a social safety net.
This became apparent when migrant workers, who form part of the circular economy, were left in the lurch without any social security net to tide over the COVID-19-induced lockdown. Left with no guarantee of shelter, their next meal or any certainty as to when the lockdown would end, the workers started a long and perilous walk back to their home States.
It is paramount to consider the link between the inadequacies in an existing law, its implementation and accountability vis-à-vis the State and the enterprise that has to abide by it. Let us first examine the laws and regulations that are already in place.
For the workers’ benefit, the Government has created certain social security nets like the Employees’ State Insurance Scheme (ESI) and the Provident Fund (PF) for labourers who work in the organised sector. It is the duty of the employers or the contractors to register their employees under these schemes but in practice, they grossly under report the number of such workers to reduce compliance costs. As a result, the JAM trinity-linked direct transfer schemes are difficult to implement because a large number of employees are invisible.
Further, schemes such as the Building and Other Construction Workers (BoCW), a welfare fund set up under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, meant for the largest section of the migrant workers and informal labour also rely on registration. The Labour Ministry reported that around Rs 31,000 crore was lying unspent in BoCW funds. Several activists have also highlighted that migrant workers did not receive any benefit and that the BoCW fund has registered many bogus workers.
In this context, the need for an accountability and fair work ombudsman has been very much felt. Such an institution would ensure that worker benefit schemes are better implemented and utilised so that their true beneficiaries receive the required social safety net, especially in times of crisis.
Uncertain times call for drastic changes to the labour laws in order to deliver stakeholder benefits. However, in the past month, several States have taken steps to suspend extant labour laws rather than strengthen them.
The primary logic, rather the zeal, behind this move is to incentivise economic growth on the assumption that deregulation through labour law reforms will enhance economic prospects. The Uttar Pradesh Government has proposed the suspension of all labour laws for the next three years. Only those that are related to payment of timely wages, prohibition of bonded labour and health and safety of workers are excluded.
The Madhya Pradesh Government’s amendments focus on new factories and establishments which would be exempted from the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. These State Governments have also suspended the working of the Act, which hampers the rights of a worker to approach the Industrial Tribunal in case of an industrial dispute or seek compensation in case of layoffs and retrenchments.
However, a conjoint reading of Article 246, 213 and 254 of the Constitution demonstrates that a Governor cannot promulgate any ordinance without the assent of the President in relation to an ordinance which suspends labour laws. As of date, the President has not granted such assent to these changes proposed by various States.
One cannot do away with the labour law regulations just to ease pressure on economic growth. Their removal is antithetical to the idea of a social net that makes the workers feel secure at their workplace. Most importantly, these labour changes will last for only three years. Such a sunset clause is bound to detract rather than attract investments due to the short-lived nature of these incentives. Industry requires a labour law structure that is stable and secure rather than one which changes every few years.
The need of the hour is that Governments, while continuing the process to streamline existing laws, strike a balancing act and implement beneficial and investor-friendly labour reforms, which address the deep-rooted problems for the workers’ welfare.
(Writer: Mekhala Pande; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Denial, panic, scapegoating and ultimate sense are the usual way societies have dealt with new diseases throughout history
The Pakistani media continues to carry reports about how large sections of society are being careless in their attitude towards the pandemic. It slams the Government for bungling the crisis by being misinformed about the dynamics of Covid-19 and its spread. Many have also criticised the regime for allowing its political biases to impact its contingency policies, which have so far been chaotic and almost entirely unable to stall the virus’ rapid spread. Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and many of his Ministers have been censured for “misinforming” the people about the true nature of the disease while, at the same time, vetoing the idea of strict lockdowns. So, as the outbreak ravages the country with frightening speed, Khan does not have much to say or show other than claim that he knew things were going to get bad.
With examples like China, Italy, Spain, Iran and the US before us, it didn’t require a genius to “know” that things would get bad here as well. Even though Khan was hailed by his sycophantic circle of Ministers for being oracular for this insightful prediction, he had also earlier described the disease as, merely, a “flu.”
The Government then continued to add unsubstantiated claptrap to its largely convoluted narrative in this regard, until intense media criticism triggered a sudden volte-face and saw the Government resort to accusing the general populace for letting things get out of hand. What’s more, the Government also continued to ignore some rational advice from provincial governments and health experts. One such advice was for imposing stricter lockdowns. But the PM disagreed. Instead, he began to rationalise his disapproval of lockdowns as an egalitarian act, undertaken for the benefit of the poor.
This rationale was almost immediately debunked by some writers on the economy. Business and economics journalist Khurram Hussain pointed out that lockdowns were, in fact, opposed by the business community, and members of this community were influencing Khan’s anti-lockdown sentiments. Veteran journalist and political pundit Najam Sethi shared similar views. Martin Gak in a piece for the German news site DW explains the idea of opening up businesses (and thus, allowing the deaths of thousands from Covid-19) as the 21st century equivalent of an ancient past, in which human sacrifice was practised in some cultures, supposedly for the well-being of the larger community.
The outbreak in Pakistan was further compounded by a controversial Supreme Court order in which the court asked provincial governments to open malls and markets before Eid. Not surprisingly, two weeks after that, Coronavirus cases in Pakistan witnessed an unprecedented spike.
But Pakistan is not the only country where the Government has badly botched the response to the pandemic and where the denial of its dangers or existence can be found in large sections of society. Similar scenarios are being played out in the US, Brazil, Mexico and India. Interestingly, each one of these, like Pakistan, have governments headed by populists.
The Brazilian PM actually took part in an anti-lockdown rally and then issued an order that the number of Corona cases in Brazil should not be reported. US President Donald Trump claimed that the virus threat was insignificant.
In India, it became apparent that the Narendra Modi regime only had the muscle to impose its Hindutva ideology but had no idea how to control the virus. In Pakistan, Khan with nothing to show in this respect, ended up somewhat absurdly gloating that Pakistan was the only Muslim country where mosques were not closed for prayers. As if this were some colossal achievement in a time of a raging pandemic.
Journalist and novelist Karl Taro Greenfeld writes that historically societies often go through “four stages of grief” during pandemics and plagues.
Mount Saint Vincent University’s Professor Jonathan Roberts, an expert on the history of plagues, agrees. Roberts says that the historical pattern in which societies behave during pandemics has remained intact and that he is seeing the same pattern being repeated during the current outbreak.
Roberts has been investigating the ancient and modern histories of social and political responses to contagions. The pattern he was talking about starts with outright denial of an outbreak, followed by a panic reaction. This is then followed by scapegoating, which is tied to the emergence of conspiracy theories. On a more hopeful note, Robert suggests that in the fourth stage, those in power finally allow the proliferation of correct information to get out. But by then, thousands of lives have been lost and economies devastated. What’s more, a community of people who are blamed for the outbreak during the scapegoating stage, would have suffered severe ostracism and harassment. This is related to what the World Health Organisation (WHO) calls an “infodemic”, when madcap theories, once relegated to the lunatic fringes of society, suddenly emerge on the mainstream during the fear triggered by an outbreak.
Author and medical sociologist Dr Robert Bartholomew says that Jews were blamed for the 14th Century Bubonic Plague in Europe and the 1918 flu pandemic — which killed millions — was dubbed the Spanish Flu, not because Spain was the outbreak’s epicentre but because the Spanish Government was the first to identify the problem. During the same pandemic, many in Britain believed that the virus was a germ created by the German military, even though an equal number of Germans were dying from it. With the proliferation of social media sites, unsubstantiated claims, denials and scapegoating have increased at an alarming rate about the source country of the virus.
But for Robertson and Greenfeld, there is light at the end of this tunnel. Both claim that, historically, the last stage of the aforementioned historical pattern is when societies and rulers come to their senses and work to address and contain the problem.
Rational contingency plans and their implementation, scientifically- sound advice to the public and the debunking of crackpot theories are vital. Unfortunately, many countries like Pakistan still seem to be stuck in the earlier stages of reaction: Denial, confusion and scapegoating. Only a handful of nations have moved into the more hopeful fourth stage.
Almost every scientist is trying to make a contribution to the pandemic. This has led to everyone, including non-scientists, writing on almost every aspect of the crisis. How does one make sense?
COVID-19 has left the world bewildered as much as it has challenged the global scientific community, which is making every possible effort to learn more about the virus, find effective diagnostic assays, drugs and vaccines for its cure. Learning about the structure, behaviour and prevalence of the virus to help design public health strategies and medical interventions is the need of the hour. Almost every scientist is trying to make a contribution to the pandemic. This has led to everyone, including non-scientists, writing and publishing on almost every aspect of the spread. The research efforts of the scientific community are visible from the mammoth quantities of data generated through publications, growing by thousands every day. More than 4,000 new scientific papers pertaining to the disease and the virus were added just in a week’s time.
COVID-19 papers have been downloaded more than 150 million times since publishers brought down paywalls on research related to the pandemic. Since January, several major publishers have made around 50,000 COVID-19-related papers freely available. This is the biggest explosion scientific literature has ever seen. It is becoming increasingly difficult for scientists to keep pace with the growing volumes of information and sifting through all of it to find that which is relevant to their areas of research. The world is grappling to find ways to manage and effectively use the scientific information being generated. Thankfully, data scientists and software developers across the world have geared up with the help of journal publishers to create new search tools. These are in the form of datasets through data cleaning efforts and curated sets that bunch publications into collections of similar studies, while also highlighting the strong papers in those areas of research.
Efforts are also being made to cut out unnecessary noise through automated search tools via Artificial Intelligence (AI) so that a researcher lands at the information being sought, thus saving a lot of time and effort. Several datasets and databases have surfaced to help ease the COVID information overload crisis for researchers.
WHO COVID-19 database: The World Health Organisation has a WHO COVID-19 database that gathers latest international multilingual scientific findings and knowledge. Searches and additions are made on a daily basis to the dataset through bibliographic databases, hand searches and expert-referred scientific articles from global literature. Efforts are on to build a more comprehensive database through collaboration with key partners to enrich citations. The WHO database has over 18,000 publications, searchable in many languages by title, abstract or subject. Its global research page provides quick updates. There is an international clinical trials registry platform that provides updates on the WHO Solidarity Trial for accelerating a safe and effective vaccine.
The Lancet COVID-19 Resource Centre: It brings together new content from across The Lancet journals as it is published, making the content free to access in order to assist health workers and researchers. Similarly, there are other resources on COVID-19 like Cambridge University Press, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Medical Association, Cochrane, Elsevier, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), JAMA Network, The Lancet, LITCOVID: US National Library of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine and, Oxford University Press.
The CORD-19 dataset: The COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge, an initiative of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, has brought together the Semantic Scholar team at the Allen Institute for AI with the likes of Google, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create a free resource of open tools and datasets of over 63,000 scholarly articles.
This is the largest structured dataset that caters to the ongoing need of the global research community for which the corpus is updated regularly with current research featuring in peer-reviewed publications from sources like PubMed’s PMC, corpus maintained by the WHO and from archival services like bioRxiv, medRxiv and so on, based on search COVID-19 and Coronavirus research. In addition to the above major databases, there are numerous other datasets, literature repositories, specific information resources, re-purposing databases and technological advancements that are helping the world make meaning out of the mayhem.
Ethical concerns due to rapid publication rate: There is ample reason to be concerned about the quality of data as well as regulatory and ethical issues surrounding data generated at such a quick pace. Questions on gaps in information generated, its quality and thoroughness have been raised. A recent retraction in The Lancet and the scandal associated with it is proof enough of this cause for concern. Social media platforms have been instrumental in releasing quick information about research findings of significance and providing instant feedback through online comments or suggestions for the study, as also linking the information with similar studies going on elsewhere in the world. However, not all significant research findings garner the same attention on social media platforms for researchers to pick up and relate. In fact, some do not surface on such platforms at all or drown in endless tweets or Facebook posts when there is too much to report on a subject and it’s hard to catch up, till you are spending too much time on these platforms.
A general search for research publications, based on key words like Coronavirus and COVID-19, has shown that while there are quite a few promising studies and publications of high quality that can be pursued further, most other publications are either analysis, commentaries or incomplete studies that have been reported to either hasten publication or be visible. A thorough peer review is missing in most cases and hence, the authenticity or the quality of data raises grave concern. In many cases, research findings reported do not support the conclusions that have been stepped up to ensure publication in prestigious journals. While most of the literature on COVID-19 is freely available, around 20 per cent of the research publications are still behind paywalls, and this percentage is expected to grow in the near future to almost half of the total. That makes a comprehensive analysis quite difficult.
The role of biological resource centres: Rapid data sharing is important to help identify the causative agent; investigate and predict the extent of disease spread; define diagnostic protocols and evaluate treatments and methods to contain further spread. The types of information that can be collated and shared may include surveillance data, trial data, pathogen genomic and proteomic data, case study reports and summary of observations from these data sources.
The users may include data scientists, bioentrepreneurs, clinicians, public health workers, researchers, governments, NGOs, disaster management experts, regulatory bodies and so on. However, there are multiple barriers to rapid data sharing, including concerns over data protection, confidentiality and different data protection legislations across countries. Other major barriers may be poor curation tools and quality of data. There is little doubt that breakthroughs in various facets of biotechnology will hugely impact our societies and lives almost as profoundly as information technologies have done in the past. Data sharing is necessary for enabling the global community to prepare for and respond to pandemics and similar global health crisis and speed up the diagnostic and therapeutic regimen.
With major sequencing efforts across the world resulting in massive biological data accumulation, storing, managing, annotating and archiving it has become quite a scientific challenge. Using this growing body of information to dig out solutions to the challenges is the need of the hour. Although, there are many biological data centres across US and Europe, access to biological data resources remains restricted due to different data protection policies. As a result, researchers from many developing economies could not access this.
While the world awaits a biological discovery, our trust in science to handle the global crisis and impact scientific, societal, political and economic decisions only grows with passing time. This can also have a separate dimension for storage, accession and archival of published information on infectious organisms to aid the researcher.
(Writer: Deepika Bhaskar/ Feroz Suri; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Maharashtra has led by example in reining in the Corona pandemic even as the Opposition ramped up efforts to pull the Maha Vikas Aghadi Government down
As the city of Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra re-opens cautiously but optimistically in a phased manner, it is important to mention how the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government continues to face relentless attack from the main Opposition party, the BJP, ever since the three parties — the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress — formed a coalition Government and took charge of the State in November last year. Barely had the MVA Government presented its first budget and started building a roadmap for the revival of the State’s economy, the Coronavirus pandemic brought fresh challenges for it.
The Maharashtra Government, namely the Chief Minster and the Health Minister, started providing daily updates on COVID-19 after the first case was registered on March 9. Most cases were related to travellers returning from abroad, who were not in the Centre’s scanner list initially. Since then, the State has seen a spurt in the number of Corona cases. With a total of 1,69,883 cases, the death toll stands at 7,429. There are 73,298 active cases while 88,960 patients have recovered so far.
Of course, this has prompted the Opposition to question the State Government’s strategy in handling the pandemic. It even predicted doomsday scenarios with hashtags such as #MaharashtraBachao trending on social media platforms. However, as it is said, the devil is always in the details. Truth makes the State’s BJP unit uncomfortable and, hence, it is unable to confront actual figures. The death rate in Maharashtra did climb up to 7.5 per cent eight weeks ago but it has dropped steadily since then and now stands at 4.65 per cent. Recovery rate has seen a marked improvement and now stands at 52.26 per cent, up from 26.25 per cent on May 20. Mumbai’s COVID-19 doubling rate is 25 days while the national average is 19 days. The daily death figures reported by Maharashtra so far, too, have declined in the fortnight. In the State capital and the nation’s financial capital city, Mumbai, where the average doubling rate of cases stood at 41 days, Dharavi, which was labelled as a ticking time bomb, is now recording cases in single digit. Further, Mumbai saw its coronavirus count rise with 1,297 new cases being reported in the last 24 hours, taking the city’s tally to 72,175. With 44 new deaths reported this week, Mumbai’s death toll stands at 4,179. The number of active cases here are 28,244 and 39,744 patients have recovered so far. This is way below the estimates provided by a five-member inter-ministerial central team that had projected that the number of cases would spiral to approximately 6.5 lakh by mid-May.
When the State Government announced a phased lifting of the lockdown, it remained focussed on augmenting bed capacity to be able to handle a rise in the number of cases. Since then, the State Government increased bed capacity in hospitals from 400 to 2.5 lakh, of which 25,000 beds had oxygen facilities. The number of ICU beds, too, was increased from 250 to around 8,500. Hospitals for treating infections with isolation facilities, too, were increased from just three to 2,576.
Moreover, the number of COVID-19 testing laboratories was raised from three to 100, the highest in the country. The State Government has also taken charge of 80 per cent of the beds in private hospitals and capped the treatment cost to ensure patients aren’t used to profiteer in the times of a pandemic. The State has neither shied away from testing nor from sharing data on the same. Trace, test and treat have been the guiding principle.
It was ironic that the media and certain influencers woke up to the transparency once Delhi raced past Mumbai in the number of cases reported, forcing the Central Government to intervene to help augment their capacities. The State Government is now entirely focussed on bringing down the mortality rate.
It is depressing that the State has continued to witness political slugfest ever since the Corona pandemic began when it had to grapple with a high mortality rate. It continues to fight this battle even as leaders in the Opposition are busy holding press conferences and protests to give teeth to their political agenda. They even made frequent visits to the Raj Bhavan to create political instability in the State.
While the country was battling the migrant crisis, Maharashtra, which is home to the largest migrant population, created over 18,000 relief camps for them. However, the migrants spilled out on the roads in large numbers outside the Bandra station after the end of the first phase of the lockdown as a political slugfest over the Shramik Special trains for migrants workers erupted.
When the unfortunate deaths happened at Palghar, the BJP left no stone unturned to communalise the incident. The war of words intensified when the Railway Minister took offence to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s statement that the State had the capacity to handle more Shramik trains than were allotted to the State. This escalation happened at a time when the Railways were already facing flak for the conditions of the trains, over 80 deaths and approximately 40 trains that lost their destination and reached a different State altogether.
Despite provocations, the State Government has studiously kept itself out of politics and focussed itself in containing the pandemic by working in close cooperation with the Centre. The State Government was also left battling a second challenge in carrying out relief work that followed before and after cyclone Nisarga struck its coast.
There could be weaknesses in the State’s health infrastructure, which is being faced by other States as well, but what is important is that we should not lose sight of being able to handle this medical and humanitarian crisis with empathy and commitment to the people. So, while the Opposition continues with its political agenda, the people of the State continue to solidly back the Chief Minister and the MVA Government to help the State get out of the biggest humanitarian and medical crisis faced by the world.
(Writer: Priyanka Chaturvedi; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Human trials to start this month, results in October. This is reason enough to prioritise Govt funding to R&D
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And this is exactly what India’s innovators, scientists and researchers have shown in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, most of them as self-starters. A potential COVID-19 vaccine, the first to be developed in India, has been given the Drug Controller General of India’s (DCGI) approval for Phase I and II human clinical trials that are scheduled to start across the country this month. Results are expected to be out by October, following which larger clinical trials will be conducted. The vaccine has been developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which has delivered more than four billion doses of vaccines worldwide and also created vaccines for H1N1 and rotavirus in the past. COVAXIN, developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), is an inactivated vaccine, created from a strain of the infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus that has shown promise in pre-clinical studies, demonstrating extensive safety and effective immune responses. The good news is that apart from COVAXIN, four or five other home-grown vaccines are in early stages of development, too. Zydus Cadilla is working on two vaccines while Biological E, Indian Immunologicals and Mynvax are developing one each. The rapid strides that are being made is proof that not for nothing is the country among the largest manufacturers of generic drugs and vaccines in the world. It is home to half a dozen major vaccine makers and a host of smaller ones, making doses against stubborn diseases like polio, meningitis, pneumonia rotavirus, BCG, measles, mumps and rubella.
When we began our fight against the pandemic, there was an atmosphere of fear and gloom in the country over the fact that our healthcare facilities were inadequate. We did not have enough PPEs, testing kits or ventilators and the general consensus was that with the West and China having massive resources at their disposal to pump into research, they would be the first ones to come out with the drugs and vaccines to treat Coronavirus. A vast majority of Indians were resigned to the fact that even if the vaccine did come out, it would reach us after a considerable time lapse as the rich and developed nations would get it first because of their money power and clout. If anything, the pandemic has unleashed our determination to find our own solutions since the world is starved of resources. It has also made it imperative for us to invest in research and development, so far neglected and supported by corporates. After testing kits, ventilators and even making our own PPE kits — we are now exporting the last — we have been innovating at a rapid pace. We have also developed robots powered by Artificial Intelligence to clean Covid wards and look after patients in isolation wards. The biggest news in the fight against the virus came on June 21 when the DCGI granted permission to Glenmark Pharmaceuticals to manufacture and sell Favipiravir and also gave Cipla and Hetero emergency marketing approval for Remdesivir for treating severe COVID-19 patients. We may have not been the first off the block where the vaccine is concerned as the ones developed by Moderna Inc, China’s Sinovac Biotech and UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca are set to enter late-stage trials, but the fact remains that we will be independent and not look to the West or the dragon to tackle our emergency. Our researchers and scientists have shown that not for nothing are they considered the best minds in the business.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
The resourcefulness and resilience of our workmen should not be underestimated. This is especially true for services and goods for which there is a non-discretionary demand
The handwritten sign on the shuttered paan shop in my neighbourhood had just a phone number on it. I had, on a whim, gone to the market to see if there was any possibility of getting some cigarettes. With nothing to lose, I tried the number. A man named Tiwari answered the phone and when I asked him about the possibility of getting cigarettes, he said he could deliver them the next morning. Not just that, Tiwari also asked me if I wanted the “imported” or “Indian” variety of that particular brand. The price was finalised at a 50 per cent mark-up to the maximum retail price (MRP) and promptly at 10 am the next morning, Tiwari was there on his Scooty.
Surprised, I asked him how he had managed to reach me during a complete lockdown in our neighbourhood where the policemen were not just stopping people but actively demonstrating their penchant for using force.
Apparently, Tiwari was helped by serendipity. Several months ago, to make an extra buck, Tiwari had started selling bread and eggs from his paan shop. Now, he was allowed to open his shop as part of essential services and that is how he was managing to move around freely. Of course, there were few people buying eggs and bread from him, since these were easily available, but cigarettes and paan masala were another matter altogether.
Though the pandemic-induced lockdown wreaked havoc on the livelihoods of millions of hawkers, the street vendors were the worst-hit since they were surviving from day-to-day even before the shutdown began. But there are other small shopkeepers, mechanics and service personnel, who are still suffering immense hardships due to the lockdown, even though much of the economy has been opened up in a graded manner now by the Government in a bid to start up the growth engine.
However, the resourcefulness and resilience of our workmen should not be underestimated. This is especially true for services and goods for which there is a non-discretionary demand.
A few days into the lockdown, I noticed that suddenly the number of vegetable vendors who peddle their wares on carts in our neighbourhood had increased significantly. This seemed odd and so I hypothesised that these were people who ordinarily work other trades but were now forced to do this to earn a livelihood. This nebulous hypothesis was confirmed and the details fleshed out by Krishna, whom I accosted while he was on his rounds selling vegetables near my house.
It turned out that Krishna was otherwise a daily wage labourer — the kind that throng “labour chowks” in any city in the morning in the hope of being picked up by a contractor to work on a building site. With the construction business being shut and being a resourceful man, he struck a deal with his neighbour, Ahmad. Ahmad is a kabadiwala (scrap collector) who has a rickshaw which he uses. But kabadiwalas are not allowed to ply their trade now. So Krishna offered to rent Ahmad’s rickshaw at Rs 50 a day. Now Krishna goes at 3 am to the wholesale vegetable market and gets vegetables to hawk through the day. The iron law of markets makes both of them better off during the lockdown.
The resourcefulness of people slightly up the social ladder is also quite in evidence these days. Some at the top of the pecking order have used their “contacts” in the administration to get Covid-19 passes on their cars, which allow them to travel in the city way past the curfew hours and also cross State borders that till now remain firmly shut for the common man.
The not so fortunate ones have found other ways to manage the police roadblocks. For instance, I noticed that there is a sudden increase in the number of people who are socially-inclined and are thus providing relief to stranded migrants and daily wagers. Their cars have got home printed signs that read “Covid-19, Relief Material” and always seem to be filled with bags and cartons. Except somehow, I never see them going out to distribute this material to the needy.
Wikipedia lists at least 12 languages with the phrase “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This is certainly the case nowadays. A friend shared a picture of how he has carefully marked his cigarettes so that he can smoke them over time — one third in the morning, one third after tea and so on. The paan shops in his area haven’t opened up as yet and he obviously hasn’t heard of his neighbourhood “Tiwari.”
People who never tasted any other alcohol except for Scotch whisky are making do with whatever they can lay their hands on — in a friend’s case, a bottle of cheap vodka.
My own case was a bit more prosaic. Of all things, the strap of my chappals broke early on in the lockdown. Since one was home-bound, this item of footwear was the one used most of the time. Clearly something had to be done. So I went to the neighbourhood kirana (grocery) store, got some adhesive and used it liberally on the strap to fix it. Thankfully it is holding up and hopefully will last me till the “non-essential” shoe shops open.
Social distancing, a phrase which has entered common parlance, thanks to its constant use in the media, has been internalised by most people who can afford to distance themselves. Except that the distancing is mostly from the hoi polloi and that, too, only when it can be done without any discomfort.
In my neighbourhood, initially no maids or gardeners were being allowed. The residents, inspired by videos of celebrities on social media doing jhaadoo-pochaa (sweeping and mopping), decided that they, too, could do it. Alas, this lasted only for a few days and soon the maids were called back. However, now quite a few of the maids, having lost their livelihood, had gone back to their villages. Thus, the few who remained were cajoled and implored to take on work at extra houses.
The one thing which didn’t involve any social distancing was of course buying fruits and vegetables. This is one activity in which every household in India excels. In the initial days of the lockdown, as soon as the fruit/vegetable hawker would call out, women from the colony would come out and crowd around him.
No masks of course were worn by any of them possibly taking the initial World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations of masks not being needed seriously. More importantly, every single apple, mango, tomato, potato and okra was hand-picked from a pile and then the usual haggling over price happened.
Now, of course, with the pandemic spreading like wildfire and the WHO recommending masks and gloves as a means of escaping infection, the ladies of the colony and even the fruit/vegetable vendors are sporting masks. That they hang loose most of the time is another matter.
Yet another thing which happened during the forced lockdown was an increased interest in sports. This, in effect, meant playing the one game which is easiest to play on the road, in your garden, driveway or even your terrace — badminton. It was vaguely touching to see couples, who last possibly picked up a racket 20 years ago, suddenly bonding over a game of badminton on their terrace. Board games also became all the rage for families forced to stay indoors and, of course, their prices skyrocketed thanks to the opportunism displayed by online toy vendors.
The children continued riding their bicycles as well as playing other games, blissfully unaware of the need for social distancing. While ordinarily they would play inside the house since the roads had traffic, the lockdown meant that the roads were almost empty and so they could play in the streets.
Incidentally, it also meant that the roads were taken over by dogs, birds, stray cattle and in our case, several horses — I am not sure where they came from — maybe because no weddings were taking place, the ghodi walas (wedding mare providers) had let them loose to feed on whatever they could find.
Now with the Unlock 1.0 in force and our leader telling us to unlock, unlock, unlock, things are changing. For instance, since there is a gradual increase in construction activity as well as street hawking, the number of fruit/vegetable sellers has decreased to almost pre-lockdown levels.
Tiwari now opens his paan shop as usual but what is curious, continues to sell his wares at a mark-up. When I asked him why he is doing this now, he conspiratorially whispers — “Sir, banned hai na.”
(Writer: Shobhit Mahajan; Courtesy: The Pioneer)
Showmanship is for politics, not science, warn researchers on the ICMR’s rush to launch Covaxin by August 15
Science cannot be rushed”, is a common refrain across our scientific community as the nation’s topmost medical research body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said it was attempting to launch the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, on August 15. The Ministry of Science had to curb such ambition with a statement saying it would not be ready before 2021. In effect, the ICMR is saying that while all the other countries, who are way ahead of us in terms of their research and trials on the vaccine and still would not be able to release it by the year-end, India by some miracle, would be able to do so in less than two months of it being approved for trial. This is a timeline unheard of anywhere in the world and even the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, which is miles ahead of us, is expected to hit the Indian market at the end of this year at the earliest. ICMR may defend itself, saying it is cutting through red tape but vaccine development does take time. Under normal circumstances, clinical trials on volunteers who are innoculated take over 10 years. However, given the pandemic and its effects on the world economy and health, this timeline has been compressed by most scientists around the world. The trials will now combine Phase 1 and Phase 2 to speed up the process. Phase 1, usually small, is used to determine a vaccine’s safety profile while Phase 2 employs a bigger sample size and looks at the immune responses. However, a vaccine is deemed safe to be commercially available only after Phase 3, which is a much larger efficacy trial involving thousands of participants. But even with a telescoped timeline, experts don’t expect to see a vaccine before 12-18 months. This makes the ICMR’s plans scientifically implausible.
Worryingly, for Indians, who will be the final recipient of the shots, the trial document for Covaxin does not mention Phase 3. Even for Phase 1 and Phase 2, there appears to be some confusion over the sequence to be followed. Seven of the 12 participating institutes are yet to receive a green signal from independent ethics committees, a prerequisite for conducting clinical trials. And in one month, it is only possible to determine immediate safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of a candidate vaccine. It is not enough to find out if it is effective in preventing infections. Earlier, Bharat Biotech (BBIL), the Hyderabad-based firm which is developing the vaccine jointly with the ICMR, had itself indicated its availability for mass use by early 2021. Now, it seems to be toeing the Government line. As the country’s top research body, ICMR should have the gumption to resist political pressure and explain to its political bosses that human health and lives cannot be put at risk for the sake of showmanship or electoral gains.
(Courtesy: The Pioneer)
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