Discuss India’s current global world ranking based on health and education under current pandemic conditions.
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Answer:
In the beginning, coronavirus cases in India happened due to the abroad connection rather than transmission within the country. The first three infection cases occurred on 30th January and 3rd February in Kerala as they returned from Wuhan China [8]. Within a month later on 3rd March, two more cases were reported where one patient had a travel history from Italy while the other in Hyderabad visited Dubai. On the very same day, few other cases were observed in Jaipur [9]. To control this spread, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) issued travel advisory restrictions which were similar to the previous pandemics such as SARS, Ebola, and bubonic plague, including the imposition of self-quarantine rules for 14 days to all international travellers entering the country. Additionally, travel visas were restricted until 15th April for other countries [10] and on 16th March 2020, MoHFW proposed various interventions such as social distancing of ≤ 1 m [11] to avoid/decrease the rate and extent of disease transmission in a community which eventually leads to decreasing in a spread, morbidity, and mortality due to the disease.
On 22nd March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraged people to follow 14 h of Janata curfew in India [12]. On 24th March first phase of 21 days lockdown started in India [13]. Due to this lock down, mobility in grocery and pharmacy, recreation and retail, transit to station visits to parks, and workplaces reduced by 64.2%, −70.51%, −65.6%, −46.17 and −60.03% respectively [14]. Due to the growing number of infestation from COVID-19, on 14th April [15], Indian government declared an extended 2nd phase lockdown till 3rd May which was further lengthened till 17th May and later imposed till 31st May [14]. To make the lockdown and social distancing effective, India also levied the quarantine law under the Epidemic Disease Act, 1897. This 123-year-old legislation allows a state/country to inspect people traveling by railways, ships (air travel was not an option at that time when this law was created), and segregate suspects in hospitals, under temporary accommodations, or otherwise to prevent the spread of dangerous pandemic disease [16]. However, this is very trivial compared to North Korea's law where the military was imposed to enforce a quarantine [17,18].
Looking at the current trend in India, after the first confirmed case been reported on 30th January, the total number of confirmed patients reached 107 by 15th March, and since then, the number of positive cases is incessantly increasing. Within 15 days (15th to 30th March), confirmed cases of COVID-19 in India multiplied by 10 times. As of 30th March, India crossed more than 1071 cases with 29 deaths. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) projected that India can reduce the cases by 62% if social distancing and proposed quarantine interventions are effectively executed. Another research revealed that India may corroborate nearly 13 lakh cases by mid-May if the spread of the virus is not contained, which however can be reduced with increased testing, obeying stringent measures, and implementing restrictions [19]. Nevertheless, in India COVID-19 cases reached 1,01,139 by 18th May. Initially, it was considered that India was dealing well with a low number of positive cases from COVID-19 because of the constricted transmission during a lockdown and social distancing [20], however, at the end of all lockdown phases, India experienced a total of 1,90,648 confirmed case including 5407 deaths due to this disease [21]. Cities like Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, and Kolkata were identified as the COVID-19 hotspots with four major metropolitan cities accounted for nearly 40% of the COVID-19 cases in India [22]. It was speculated that the disease speeded in a higher number among children age ≤10 years and elder people diagnosed with other health issues [23]. Even though several researchers are now engaged to predict and estimate the COVID-19 cases and end of this pandemic [[24], [25], [26]], India is experiencing exponential growth in the number of COVID-19 cases. As of 11th July 2020, India is the 3rd most COVID-19 infected country with currently 2,922,58 active cases, along with 5,34,620 patients being cured and discharged (recovery rate of 60.86%) followed by the demise of 22,674 COVID-19 infected patients. Fig. 1 shows the total infected cumulative cases in India till 11th July 2020.