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The #ChineseCoronaVirus pandemic is a high risk-high impact situation, for India as for the rest of the world. The risk is singular - that the virus may spread across a large population. It is especially high for India because we live in densely populated pockets.

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The impact of this risk is twofold. First, that it will strain our already strained healthcare infrastructure and lead to loss of many lives. And second, that by the end of the pandemic, it will leave the economy in crutches.

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In this thread I try to break down the problem and discuss our options from an Indian prospective.

To overcome the pandemic, & to come out on the other side -strong & standing, both physically & economically, we have to mitigate both the risk & the impact simultaneously.

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The Indian government is already doing this. But more can be done.

Let us first evaluate the risk and options that minimize it – IN EXCLUSION. To stop the spread of the #ChineseCoronavirus in a densely populated country like India, restrictions are required.

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These restrictions include, but are not limited to, self-isolation, lock-down of borders – both international and domestic, suspension of businesses, lock-down of cities and towns, and curfew.

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These risk mitigating options have been plotted on a seven stage inverted pyramid, with the bottom most options being least effective & least authoritarian.

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From the pyramid, some people may TODAY argue as to why not impose the more effective and stringent laws from the very beginning itself. There are two things about this argument that must be noted.

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First, that these people today have the benefit of hindsight and are experiencing the pressure of rising number of positive cases first hand. And second, that action without cause would have been met with retribution and civil unrest.

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However, we must appreciate that India started putting measures in place very early in comparison to most countries of the world.

Now, let us examine that if drastic steps like lock-down had been taken early on, what would the situation be like?

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In exclusion, if such a decision did not affect anything else, we would probably have fewer positive cases today, and more bored disgruntled people at home, tweeting about over-reaction from the government.

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But the fact is risk cannot be mitigated in exclusion, and the impact of such risk mitigation is twofold. Stringent actions would have taken a greater toll on our economy which would start a second vicious high risk - high impact cycle.

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The resulting slowdown would emanate from reduced production and supply, leading to increase in costs (inflation) and loss of jobs and earnings, further resulting in reduction of demand.

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This vicious cycle would result is more job losses, more suicides (lives saved today could be less than lives lost later), prolonged lethargy in the economy and would take the country several years behinds in its development goals. Therefore, a balance has to be struck!

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India has implemented the right measures at the right time. Our economy will still be impacted, but our government is the first the world that has already formed a special economic task force to counter the impact of the #ChineseCoronovirus.

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I had discussed measures that may stimulate the economy in a separate 16 tweet thread that may be seen here: https://twitter.com/Ankur4BJP/status/1184711817005694977?s=20

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In trying to strike a balance, the most important factor to note is the low mortality rate (about 4%) of the #ChineseCoronavirus pandemic.

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This allows the government to take more risk (than it would have been able to take in case of diseases like Ebola (50% mortality), etc.), implement phased restrictions, and thereby dilute the economic impact to the largest possible extent.

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Let us now try to ascertain if what has so far been done has been ideal, or not.

The government started by thermal screening of international passengers and isolation those who had fever at a very early stage.

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China identified the ‘novel’ Conoravius on January 7, 2020 and informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) about the same. India put in place procedures for screening of passengers travelling from China on January 8, 2020 itself.

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Here, we must note that China had been maintaining that the virus was contained within its borders, and the Indian government had no way of knowing that China had delayed the sharing of information by almost a month, and that the virus was already global.

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Despite this India has, until now, always been ahead of the curve in trying to restrict the spread of this #ChineseCoronaVirus.

Subsequently, India closed down schools, theaters, gyms, swimming pools, etc. even when the number of cases in the country was in single digit.

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Very soon universal screening of international passengers was initiated and advisory for home-isolation was released.

Here, we must note something about the advisory.

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Social distancing and self-isolation are very important tools to prevent the spread of this #ChineseCoronaVirus. However, the problem is this requires self discipline from the people. Sadly, self-discipline is a tall order!

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Ironically, in the first stage, self-discipline was required from rich educated people who traveled abroad. But, I guess people who say western education has ruined our intelligence are not wrong after all! Of course, WE CAN CONVENIENTLY BLAME THE GOVT FOR OUR MISTAKES.

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Anyway, moving on the state governments also started taking charge and imposing restrictions on gatherings. However, our weak governments did not have the spine to prevent religious gatherings.

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I would have been placed restriction on religious gatherings in level 2 (from the bottom of the pyramid - tweet 6/42) for rest of the countries in the world, but given the religious sensitivities in India I intentionally placed it in level 3.

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However, few directives have been passed even today when we are moving towards level 4 and 5 of the pyramid of restrictions. This along with #ShaheenBagh is an example of where people and government have failed.

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Unlike any other country in the world, we have already suspended all international flights, and are already locking down our cities and states. We are still at stage 2 (direct contact) of the virus spread as at the time of writing this essay.

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But we are on the very brink of, and will surely move into stage 3 (community spread) because of the spread that has already happened in the last 14 days and are asymptomatic till now.

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Number of positive cases will increase but we still need not panic. NOW IS THE TIME FOR CONTINUOUS STRINGENT MEASURES AT LEAST UP TO LEVEL 5 OF THE PYRAMID FOR THE NEXT 14 DAYS. We would have effectively controlled the virus by then.

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If we had initiated a complete lock-down before this stage, it would have resulted in extreme long term economical and social issues.

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Some people theorize that the number of positive cases in India are multiple times higher than what has been stated. To these people, I ask WHERE ARE THE PATIENTS?

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Unlike China, where the media is controlled by the state, Indian media enjoys freedom like no other. They also enjoy tarnishing the image of the current dispensation. Therefore, if there were more cases, the same would have been reported.

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Another important thing to note is the logic behind people who are tested. This is an imported virus. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to starting testing everyone from the beginning itself!

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India started by testing people coming from affected countries, to testing all international travelers, to testing symptomatic ‘high-risk’ people who came into contact with these travelers, to testing all ‘high-risk’ people in contact with international travelers.

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In between, the government also tested random flu samples from across the country to check for community spread. Once such a spread is reported, the government will change strategy again and enlarge the ambit of people who fall under the testing criteria.

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Starting to test large number of people from the very beginning is like initiating a program to test every Indian for cholera or tuberculosis without cause. It would be fruitless, inconclusive, expensive, and to be honest outright ridiculous!

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Friends, we are now at a stage when the brunt of economic trade-off will finally have to be borne. We must, at this time, rein in our greed, and cooperate with the government by closing down business establishments that deal with non-critical commodities and services.

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Now is the point of balance that I had been talking about. We will also have to stop treating this as a holiday and avoid social gatherings to gossip and ‘time-pass’.

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If we don’t, the government will be forced to bring the army in, but the cost of lives by then may already be too high!

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#JantaCurfew is just a drill, we must be prepared for a longer, stricter lock-down. But we must NOT PANIC. Together we can, we will overcome the situation as #IndiaFightsCorona.