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Monday Musings: What explains lowest Covid-19 infections in Aundh, Kothrud?
Whether it is Pune, Bengaluru or San Francisco, prominent IT hubs have not been as badly affected as the high-density inner cities.
Even though the novel coronavirus pandemic originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and then spread across the world via air travel, it is by now clear that people from the IT industry have not been badly hit by the virus even though they travel widely around the world.
In the United States, almost half of the 53,000 deaths due to Covid-19 have occurred in New York state, and less than 10% of this in California which hosts one of the major IT hubs in the world.
Closer home, India’s IT capital, Bengaluru, has not been as badly affected as say, Delhi, Mumbai or Pune.
As of April 24, Maharashtra had 6,430 positive cases and 283 deaths against 474 cases in Karnataka and 18 deaths. Bengaluru has had 67 positive cases and four deaths as against 1,070 positive cases in Pune and 69 deaths.
In Pune, the entire contiguous belt of Aundh, Baner, Balewadi and Kothrud has consistently shown the lowest number of Covid-19 cases.
While Pune has seen more than 1,000 positive cases and 69 deaths as of April 25, Aundh-Baner and Kothrud have seen a total of three cases and zero deaths.
Last week, Pune municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad told this newspaper that these two wards could be moved from the orange zone to the green zone, any time now, giving greater relaxation from the lockdown to the people there.
Whether it is the United States or India, one common factor in the rapid spread of Covid-19 is high population density.
New York has the highest population density in the US and governor Andrew Cuomo co-related high population density to the high incidence of the disease in the Big Apple.
In Bengaluru, the latest nine positive cases were detected in a colony of labourers in the city.
In Pune, the worst hit areas are primarily the high-density, low income localities of Bhavani Peth and Kasba-Vishrambaugwada in the heart of old Pune. Even in areas like Shivajinagar-Ghole Road and Yerawada-Kalas-Dhanori, it is primarily the slum pockets that have seen a high incidence of Covid-19 cases.
Given the strong co-relation between high population density and high incidence of Covid-19, the situation in Mumbai does not come as a surprise at all.
A city doctor explained the low incidence of Covid-19 in Aundh-Baner and Kothrud, by saying that “the living conditions are better and most of the areas in these localities are not congested as in the peths (inner city) where poor people living in wadas (typical structures in old Pune) have to share common toilets.
Another observation was that the IT industry mostly has young people, especially the ones who are sent abroad on assignments, and as is well-known, it is the older age-group which is more susceptible to the coronavirus infection.
High population density has clearly emerged as a major vulnerability for the coronavirus infection because it stands in inverse proportion to social distancing. This is the picture that has emerged most clearly and therefore the response from the health authorities too, can now be delivered with greater precision.
