Why in news?
As India is nearing the end of its extended lockdown, it must learn from other countries in devising strategies to contain the epidemic.
What happened in China?
- It took 94 days to reach one million Covid-19 cases on April 3, 2020 after China reported the first cluster of 41 cases on December 31, 2019.
- Within 12 days, the cases doubled to two million.
- It again took just 12 more days to cross three million cases globally.
What is the rate of spread globally?
- Spread - The virus has now spread to 188 countries/regions.
- The true number of infections will be several-fold higher as most countries have not been testing people who have mild or no symptoms.
- While new cases have declined in Europe, there is an uptick in Africa and South America.
- The virus is still spreading quickly in the U.S., which has the most number of cases globally.
- Deaths - There have been over 2.1 lakh deaths worldwide.
- With the U.S. accounting for over 56,600 deaths, which is double that of Italy, which is over 27,000.
What is the rate of spread in India?
- India has reported over 30,300 cases and 973 deaths.
- The number of cases has multiplied several-fold from over 600 since the national lockdown from March 25.
- At nearly 8,600 cases, Maharashtra has the maximum in the country.
- Dharavi, a slum in Maharashtra alone has 330 cases and 18 deaths.
- Nearly 3,000 people might need institutional quarantine in the absence of effective containment in Dharavi.
What could India learn from the Singapore’s experience?
- Singapore almost contained the spread of the virus early on.
- But, the city-state has seen numbers rising since late March, 2020.
- Dormitories - Fresh cases have been reported from dormitories that house over 0.2 million migrant workers from other countries.
- The crowding in the dormitories has provided an ideal setting for easy infection spread.
- These dormitories are akin to what is seen in the slums in India.
- Efforts - Singapore has shut down educational institutions and workplaces on April 3, when the number of cases was 1,114.
- Though it took many other measures to contain the spread, it has not been able to contain the spread of the virus.
- Nearly 15,000 cases have been reported as on April 28, 2020.
- As India nears the end of its extended lockdown, it needs to learn from the successes and failures of other countries.
Source: The Hindu
