Indian history has records of similar epidemic outbreaks but studies have shown that pathogens have generally come from foreign shores. Trade undertaken globally saw the arrival of pathogen carrying vermin and vectors by the earliest shipping routes and bringing outbreaks in ports of entry like Bombay, Madras, Cochin and Kolkata. Similar arrivals in recent times have seen the bird flu coming to domestic poultry and animals from migratory birds. This led to pathogen to cross over to the human via the food value chain. Recent covid 19 outbreaks have followed similar routes but being brought by humans who have been travelling abroad and bringing it to the Indian shores.

This short essay conjectures what this country could have done or should do to avoid any future mishaps. Why worry? Instead of meeting the problem downstream the country’s leadership should plan to meet the issue upstream. There is a huge need in this country with one of the largest populations and demographically the youngest. The pandemic brings the country’s economy and plans to a grinding halt. India’s GDP growth and economy has a fifth been wiped off the slate. The crises balloons into a bigger one needing more money and efforts to mitigate it. This has led to a massive loss of employment. It has forced companies to embrace work from home and made to think closing down large office spaces and reduced plant capacities. Companies have to think how to service clients in the services sectors and how to manufacture and reach products to markets. Though this has been solved to a great extent by ecommerce coming to play a great role.

First things first. Since the pathogen came from abroad through people travelling in we should have stopped travel immediately. And need to do it in future. With responsibility we should have stopped the arrival of and departure of travellers. Now people need to travel having completed their testing and having a prior 20-day negative report and on arrival to get a test done. In travelling out, you go through the same procedures carrying a covid passport, follow mitigation procedures of mask, sanitization and social distancing with quarantine on arrival with testing and tracing. Failing these measures citizens need to be fined. And should apply to all citizens. It has become imperative that these will be the new norms of travel globally and should be adopted also nationally. So, if you are in the interior in other states then you would be stopped at your port of entry for observation, sanitized before being allowed to move onward to prevent the virus to reach vulnerable populations .. The entire idea is to stop the virus from spreading to your country. Your covid passport should show the date of your vaccination. If it has run out of the coverage then a vaccine dose would have to be administered.

I think in India hospitals need to be free and unencumbered to treat all covid cases. It should be only for severe cases and to whom the entire suite of services and care can be provided successfully. India should like Cuba build a National Health and Nursing services maybe add a NHS like UK to be carried out by the state /local government. People will visit from home to home doing everyday checks for health parameters on a regular monthly basis. It can cover maternity, natal care, malnutrition, polio, malaria and geriatric care etc. Vaccination can be done for the entire population through mapping. It must cover settled and mobile population (covering those living in temporary housing and in the streets. This will enable the government to control any unwanted spikes in virus spreads. Also like this time the AIIMS Director took the nodal responsibility we need an equivalent of the CDC of the US. We understand now how important a role data and analysis play in management and control of a pandemic. Severe and acute cases can be moved to the hospitals that are equipped to offer such services without stretching the healthcare staff thin. As the symptoms take new forms and start moving to the younger age groups the nation will be facing new threat conditions. Also one sees studies of covid 19 long haul symptoms like heart issues, predominantly brain and stomach issues. So suddenly the nation has to cope with a reduced and compromised workforce .So one will see the effect on the economic output of the country.

Next let’s come to the economy. Now that we have an arsenal of arms to control covid 19 my take on this is that we did not think through on our decisions and their ramifications on the economy. So, we heard a ‘thud’ when the economy stopped. Nationally we did not advise the states. This led to a huge confusion of creating SOPs. Each state was not aligned to achieve national objectives. The powers that be should take small bets to restart the economy. I think it is a wonderful opportunity to restructure the economy. Shutter some ancient British era thinking and procedures. There will be a loss but then one can sow seeds of the new economy that will be like acorns to grow into giant oaks for the future. Let’s rethink for India the backbone of industry like power steel, transportation. This is an opportunity for us to ramp up production of solar power panels to 100 X levels. This will enable a shift in energy production and consumption towards renewable solar. Another clean energy source which is with the advent of new high technologies and digital transformation is nuclear energy. This also needs to be invested in to add to India’s growing energy needs. This is an opportunity to bring in a multiprong attack to renewable energy sources by bringing investments in wind energy. This will also boost India’s move to transportation sector to build a backbone of electrical charging stations thus lessening our dependence on the fossil fuels. On the materials front India needs to invest in composite materials so that some industries do not have to be dependent on steel, aluminium and copper. Investment in studies and research will enable this move in the above sectors.

With vaccination for all it will enable the adult population to head to work especially the women’s work force. Starting with 20% participation before scaling it up to 100% for full production. The absence of labour force will see automation and robots for repetitive jobs in manufacturing and services sectors. The K 8 population can head back to school and have a healthy social interaction making them better people without the scars of isolation due to covid 19. Studying in a better environment without losing out. The young adults can manage through mobile and internet based online education. But one of the major engines of the economy is trade and international travel. A close tracking of the virus and its impact needs to be done on a day-to-day basis with back up plans of closing and opening the sectors with establishment of administration and communications channels. The services sector is also one of the major contributors of the national GDP. It is comprised of the hospitality sector of hotels, restaurants, freelance gig economy, delivery companies, app driven companies which employ the largest employee base and services a large part of the economy. The national government needs to seriously look at its various plans and maybe even drop them and start looking at different infrastructure investments that will make it globally competitive. This change in focus from public sector investments to private sector market-based initiatives is fraught with lots of danger as we see in the US which had moved so much away that it is planning to slide back to gain competitiveness in the new China led global economy. India has to look at a new tax structure that will be conducive for the new generation of Indian business to grow and conquer not just the west but also look east.