It’s been two years since a virus changed our lives, forever — mostly for the worse. COVID-19 has affected every aspect of our life — right from the way we work, to how we commute to our daily social interactions.
The first COVID-19 case in India was reported on January 30, 2020, in a medical student who had just returned from Wuhan, China. There was a brief lull after that, and then the cases started going up again in early March, mostly fuelled by infections detected in travellers from other countries. The epicentres were Maharashtra and Kerala, a trend which stayed on for the next two years.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
India entered a harsh lockdown on March 25, when the country had 500 cases and 12 deaths cumulatively. The lockdown was based on an erroneous assumption that we could stamp out the infection if there was a lockdown for 21 days. There was wide support for the lockdown among the upwardly mobile upper-middle-class, but it was an extremely challenging situation for businesses and migrant labour. There was a large scale migration from cities to rural areas, with many families walking for days together.
Businesses, especially the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), took a hit and is yet to recover fully. From the 21-day period, the duration kept on getting extended with various relaxations kicking in periodically. Several media reports reported a sharp increase in the levels of hunger and loss of livelihood among hundreds of millions of people in India.
That said, the lockdown can be credited with delaying the rapid increase in cases considerably, helping the scientific community to understand the disease better, and buy our health system some time to prepare itself.
The COVID-19 first wave peaked in September 2020 and the number of daily new infections fell to less than 10,000 in February 2021. By then it was clear that the virus had multiple variants due to mutations, with the Alpha variant first getting reported from United Kingdom, Beta from South Africa, and Gamma from Brazil.
Little did we know that India was about to be hit by a deadly variant which will wreak havoc in our healthcare system. The Delta variant, first detected in India in April 2020, was declared as a Variant of Interest (VOI) in April 2021, and a Variant of Concern (VOC) in May 2021. By early May 2021, India was reporting over 400,000 COVID-19 cases a day, and by the middle of the month, the country was seeing more than 4,000 daily deaths due to the disease. All kinds of irrational and experimental medications were being used, right from ivermectin to convalescent plasma. Along with this, India saw an outbreak of mucormycosis, a fungus which literally could eat away facial tissues and render a person blind. This second wave, fuelled by the Delta variant, further tested our healthcare system, and exposed the gross lack of preparation.
After the Delta wave, the vaccination programme against COVID-19 picked up pace. Though there were initial glitches in vaccine supply and doubts about vaccine effectiveness, the vaccine acceptance among the public was high. By the end of 2021, India was consistently recording less than 10,000 cases a day when we had an outbreak of the Omicron variant. From less than 7,000 new cases on December 27, 2021, the number went up to more than 330,000 per day in less than a month. Though we expected the worst, given our experience with the second wave, the outbreak died out without causing much heartburn. This was due to a number of factors: Omicron causing milder disease, extensive vaccination coverage, and immunity offered by previous infection.
When we look back, it has been a turbulent two years for India, and the world. Several sectors such as hospitality and air travel are gasping for breath; and the small enterprises are yet to recoup themselves. Though the Goods & Services Tax collections have been recording high numbers, everyone around seems cautious about the economic recovery in a post-COVID-19 scenario. But more importantly, COVID-19 has spurred several changes in the way we live and do business.
Digital literacy has gone up and the adoption of digital financial tools have increased significantly. When the schools closed, students started getting themselves adapted to the new paradigm by using digital learning tools. There are several fin-tech and ed-tech companies which are thriving in the current landscape, though their profitability may be a concern. Some of the biggest changes have been in the healthcare delivery space. Online consultations became popular in urban areas, and several ‘marketplace’ applications cropped up in this sector, giving patients more choices and freedom. The government also started using the power of mobile applications and social media to transmit credible healthcare information to the public, thereby moving away from conventional channels of healthcare communication. The changes due to COVID-19 are plenty, showing our resilience as a country, and our fighting spirit.
It is an open question whether a fourth wave will hit us in the near future. Any student of epidemiology will tell you that mutations will happen when there is sustained viral transmission. Therefore, we need to be prepared about more COVID-19 waves due to newer variants. But we can be reasonably sure that the future waves will not be as severe as the second wave.
So, it’s time to move on with our lives and focus on strengthening our healthcare system against future pandemics. As the inter-species barriers are breaking down, and environmental pressures are increasing the possibility of new pandemics, a strong health system is our only vaccine against large scale mortality.
Philip Mathew is a physician, public health consultant and a doctoral student at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. Twitter: @pilimat. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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