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Monday Musings: Moving forward, with ‘cautious optimism’ during the Covid-19 pandemic
The coming weeks are now going to be critical as Pune prepares to move forward, hopefully, with a lot of caution, and certainly, with optimism
More than a month ago, on March 26, to be precise, a data analyst in Pune had described the Covid-19 situation in India as “cautiously optimistic”.
Based on the analysis of the available numbers, analyst Sahil Deo had pointed out that the rise in the positive cases in India was well below the global benchmark of 33 per cent increase in cases per day and doubling of cases every 2.1 days.
Anything below that was a good sign, he had said while describing the situation as “cautiously optimistic” given the timely measures taken by the state and central governments.
As of March 26, there were about 600 positive cases in the country as against the 39,900 cases today.
Another note of optimism came from Bengaluru where Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the leading voice of the Indian biotech industry said that India had tackled the coronavirus much better than many other countries. She suggested in a recent interview that smaller red zones be created rather than entire districts to facilitate the resumption of economic activities and enable people to return to their livelihoods.
Mazumdar Shaw pointed out that India had declared lockdown when the country had about 500 cases whereas Italy did it when it had 9,000 cases and the UK, 6,700 cases. The strict pre-emptive measures such as quarantine, curfew, lockdown, and surveillance had stood India in good stead.
The social structure in India is different as compared to western countries and therefore, we did not have as many senior citizens dying as happened in the West, she noted.
Thus, there are valid reasons for us to be optimistic even as we need to be cautious as Pune moves forward, some two months after Maharashtra’s first Covid-19 positive case was reported on March 9 in this city.
In Pune, which has seen 103 deaths and 1,700 positive cases as of May 2, the concentration of cases is in a few slum pockets in five wards. Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad has already indicated that lockdown restrictions would continue in these micro-clusters and the situation would be gradually relaxed in the rest of the city to allow resumption of economic activity. The details of this are yet to be announced.
The safe return of poor migrants and others stranded due to the lockdown, along with the phased lifting of the restrictions will be the most immediate challenges before the administration.
Last week, a group of city doctors helped create public awareness as they sought to dispel the fears in the public about the final rites of patients who had died of Covid-19. This group of doctors from the Prayas Health Group and the Poona Citizen Doctor Forum pointed out that according to the guidelines by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Covid-19 is a respiratory disease and the spread stops when the patient dies. The only safety measure that needs to be observed is to stay away from the viruses present on the body surface and secretions from nose and mouth.
They then explained the clear guidelines for healthcare workers, mortuary staff and others directly handling bodies, and family members, priests and mourners. There was no reason to fear infection if the basic guidelines were followed, the doctors advised.
This advisory should have come in, say, after the 50th death itself because by then, there was a lot of panic in Pune with regards to the last rites of such patients.
The coming weeks are now going to be critical as the city prepares to move forward, hopefully, with a lot of caution, and certainly, with optimism.
abhay.vaidya@hindustantimes.com
