On 8 June, New Zealand became the latest country in the world (after Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, St. Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles Islands, Montenegro, the Vatican City, Fiji, and Tanzania) to have been declared as Covid-19 free. Except for restrictions on international borders, measures of social distancing and economic lockdown have been lifted.
In New Zealand, the last Covid-19 case was reported 17 days ago since the day of the declaration of its elimination from the country. The country recorded to have a total of 1,154 confirmed cases and 22 fatalities. The first active Covid-19 case was reported on February 28. It was indeed a moment of celebration for New Zealand with a ‘little dance’, as the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern expresses humorously.
On the contrary, the first reported case in India was found on February 3. As of June 12, with a total number of over 298,568 confirmed cases and 8,513 Covid-19 related deaths, India ascends to become the fourth worst-hit country in the world. Overall, India still seems to be far away from flattening the curve of Coronavirus infections.
Though the prolonged lockdown and hampered life are arduous and frustrating for Indians, we need to understand why the road ahead may not be smoother soon. Here are 5 things that have worked effectively in favor of New Zealand but have not helped the Indian cause as efficiently.
1. The Lockdown
New Zealand
As soon as the count of confirmed Covid-19 cases reached 100, on March 15, New Zealand took no time to seal its borders for foreigners and made 14 days home-quarantine mandatory for people coming home. On February 3, exactly 25 days before the first case was reported in the country, New Zealand had already barred entry of foreign travelers from China.
Following the ethos of Prime Minister Ardern’s assertion of going hard and early, on March 25, the country took up complete and strict lockdown measures, when the number of the total confirmed cases reached 205. The country geared up with less than 10 infections each day at that point. Barring essential services like groceries, pharmacies, hospitals, and gas stations, all social interactions were curbed including the movement of vehicles in the strictest terms until April 9. It was only a month after that New Zealand gradually alleviated some of these restrictions.
India
It was a day after when the first Covid-19 case of an incoming student from China’s Wuhan province was reported in the state of Kerala, on January 31, India severed flight operations with China. Despite prescriptions of home-quarantining after return from foreign countries, it was gravely dishonored and violated.
Similar to New Zealand, the first phase of lockdown began in India on March 25 with the shunning of all the services and industrial activities. But by then India already had 618 confirmed cases and 13 reported deaths. Though merely essential services were allowed during this lockdown phase, the domain of such services included regular banking activities and operations of local vegetable and grocery markets which usually tend to pull larger crowds at peak hours. Besides, the flouting of social distancing rules in such crowded places was not unusual.
Currently, the country has prolonged the lockdown period until 30 June for the 5th phase of it. Despite the odds, it is trying to transgress to the phase of gradual opening up of the businesses keeping the economic viability in mind. The guidelines provided for the phase are likely to increase the chances of mobility across the country.
The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to observe a ‘Janata Curfew’ on March 22 before the beginning of the maiden phase. Despite a high degree of compliance with ‘Janata Curfew’ and the consequent phase-I, the phases of lockdown afterward have not translated into effective changes. A study reveals the first phase that lasted for three weeks to have borne greater effectiveness as compared to the consequent ones.
Not only has the changing policies almost every 20 days been confusing, but also the mobility of the stranded jobless migrants were not taken into account. Overall, despite the best of intentions, the lockdown decisions were rather hasty and lacked adequate preparedness at many levels.
2. Implementation and Communication of Rules and Guidelines
New Zealand
“This is a message for all of New Zealand. We are depending on you. Where you stay tonight is where you must stay from now on”- in New Zealand the government text messages, sent before the imposition of lockdown, were loud and clear. Residents were clearly told to be patient for at least an initial two-weeks before the early signs of the lockdown impact were visible. Alongside keeping pace with the expectations of the residents, strict policing and controlling mobility were in place in an efficient manner.
“We have the opportunity to do something no other country has achieved: elimination of the virus,” Prime Minister Ardern briefed the nation on April 16. She addressed the country repeatedly as ‘a team of 5-million’ to boost its morale. Poll suggests, 88 percent of the New Zealanders trust their government to make the right policy decisions in order to fight the outbreak of Coronavirus.
Besides the formal channels of administrative measure, the 39-year-old Prime Minister Ardern made herself time and again available through online live sessions through her social media handles. From coming to live sessions after putting her baby to sleep to not shying away from answering difficult questions amid the crisis, were effective confidence-building measures on her part. People were reassured that even the most politically powerful person of the country are battling the same battle as they are.
India
The Government of India did a commendable job in putting across the electronic messages through various modes like text messages, health directives from the individual mobile operators, etc. In spite of that, the repetitive and overbearing nature of them eventually has lost its significance in terms of inculcating awareness.
In fact, the probability of these messages to have reached the urban, educated, mobile-owning population is much higher in comparison to the rural, illiterate, technologically-challenged population. In the Indian set up, reaching out to the people on the grassroots may be more implementable through a holistic community health care approach like that of Kerala.
Apart from the various directives coming in at every phase of the lockdown, the very fact that in certain cases the governments of the various states and center are not on the same page creates innumerable confusions. Especially, with the opening of inter-state borders and running of special ‘shramik’ trains/buses for migrants, way too many muddles erupted.
Despite Prime Minister Modi’s virtual messages to stand united through formal channels of communication, the gap between India’s political hierarchy and the general population were not mitigated. Especially, Prime Minister Modi’s call for Thali-banging and Diya lighting across the country in a show of solidarity with the frontline workers missed the score. Occasionally, these calls became the reason behind breaching the rules of social distancing. Within India, there are examples of smaller districts like Churu, Rajasthan where the administration strives to bridge the gap with the people through informal channels of social media for fighting the virus.
3. Testing and Contact Tracing
New Zealand
A total number of about 295,000 people were tested in New Zealand. With a population of 4.8 million, the number captures a relatively high per capita rate of testing. Statistics suggest that New Zealand ranks 3rd after Denmark and Italy, as of June 10 with 62.60 performed Covid-19 tests per 1,000 people.
As per WHO guidelines, tracing the people who have come in contact with the infected persons was key to preventing community transmission. These Covid-19 protocols were executed more than successfully in New Zealand. In fact, the Alert System, categorizing different stages of risks and directing pointed measures to its deterrence, promulgated by the government of New Zealand was effectively implemented. Currently, New Zealand stands at the Alert Level-I with no restrictions on social mingling and continuation of border restrictions.
India
Despite a high total number of around 53,63,445 testing, as reported on June 12, the per capita testing rate in the country remains low. As of June 11, India fares one of the lowest per capita testing rates in the world with 3.78 Covid-19 sample tests per 1,000 people.
Thermal-checkups of travelers coming home from foreign countries at the airports and consequent follow-ups of their quarantine period has not been pursued adequately as preventive measures. Given the huge population of the country monitoring of each of the contaminated zones is difficult.
The Indian government has come up with the Aarogya Setu app for the purposes of contact tracing and containment of virality. The data collected by the app has been useful so far as it helped to discover more than 600 hotspots and enabled health workers to have taken precautionary measures.
“For Aarogya Setu to be effective, the app must be installed on as many phones as possible, and users must regularly update their health status so that community interactions can be mapped out”, writes Shashidhar K. J, Associate Fellow of Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. As a result of the teledensity disparity between India’s urban and rural places, the app may likely “hit a natural barrier on adoption by the masses”. “The number of feature phone users is about 550 million. Feature phones can’t download the application and aren’t connected to the major app stores”, he adds.
4. Medical Infrastructure
New Zealand
As per the Human Development Report 2019, New Zealand fares 14th at the Human Development Index. The holistic development metric suggests both the economic and social well-being of the country.
The country was already known for establishing a well-integrated and coherent public health care system. As a developed country of the world, it was easier for the country to take protective measures, import testing facilities, arrange isolation centers, and provide its frontline workers with adequate safety measures.
India
On the contrary, India ranks 129th on the Human Development Index. It is indicative of India’s poor medical infrastructure among other things. As a result, grappling with the crisis with adequate and well-managed medical facilities was a challenge in itself. A number of times attentions were sought by the health workers and quarantined citizens for the unavailability of personal protection equipment (PPE) kits and poor facilities at the isolation centers, respectively.
“The issue is that while isolation wards may have been equipped with masks and PPEs, the emergency department has to make do with whatever is at hand. Yesterday, a patient with a bleed in the brain came to the hospital only for us to find out that he was Covid-19 positive. Whoever was on duty had to be quarantined for 14 days. This puts additional stress on our front-line healthcare workers. It is akin to sending soldiers to war armed with lathis instead of proper ammunition”, complained Dr. Srinivas Rajkumar, general secretary of the Resident Doctors’ Association at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), one of India’s premier government hospital at the heart of Delhi.
5. Geographic and Demographic Position
New Zealand
As an island nation, the country is better equipped to control the movement across the border entry points. With New Caledonia, a small chain of islands, being the nearest of its neighbors situated 1,200 miles away from its Northern borders and Australia on 2,500 miles east of it, New Zealand virtually stands isolated.
Barely 5 million population (comparable with the total population of the Indian city of Pune) of the country results in lower population density. As a result, New Zealand has experienced a lower than average transmission rate of 0.48 per person (less than half a person each), the worldwide average being 2.5. Since the Kiwis were already distant due to its sparse density transmission through close contact and aerial respiratory droplets are relatively less likely.
India
The country not only shares borders with at least 9 of its neighboring countries, but also deals regularly with issues of porous borders, illegal migrants, and the refugee crisis. As a result, complete isolation and restriction on all its borders have always been challenging.
Additionally, with over 1.3 billion of the total population, the country has one of the highest population density rates in the world. Despite attempts beyond a point it is difficult to follow strict measures of social distancing in a country that remains community-oriented at many levels. Even with a lower level of literacy, spreading awareness across the country comes with its own challenges.
As reported by the WHO, as of 12 June, worldwide there are 7,390,702 confirmed cases of Covid-19, which includes 417,731 deaths. The fact that the world is coping with one of the worst pandemic situations in history, makes it all the more prudent for these countries to take the cues from each other and work towards the complete eradication of the disease.
Amid such a situation, challenges are far greater for countries like India with lesser economic viability in comparison to the one like New Zealand. Notwithstanding, countries with similar economic capabilities are not near as successful as New Zealand is. Accepting the insights from New Zealand may not only bear fruits for India in specific but also help the world in dealing with the virus better.
What are your thoughts about a Covid-19 free world? What India as a nation can do to conquer the current crisis?