New Delhi: The people of India have successfully pushed Covid-19 back but one needs to remember that this virus strikes back the moment you start enjoying victory, as seen in Europe and the US, said ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta in episode 597 of ‘Cut the Clutter’.
Gupta also talked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address Tuesday night, which he said was “uncharacteristically apolitical”.
It was a simple message on how India’s Covid-19 figures have improved lately but that this is no time to be complacent or declare victory, particularly with the festival season coming up, said Gupta.
Also read: India records lowest test positivity of 4.5% since June, new cases dip below 50,000
Bending the Covid curve
Gupta explained how India’s Covid graphs have been declining in the last three weeks in terms of active cases, deaths, case fatality rate and test positivity rate.
Active coronavirus cases have also declined below the 8-lakh mark for the first time in over a month. The peak of the infection in India was in mid-September this year when India’s active cases crossed a million, but they are now declining at a rate of 2 per cent a day.
As pointed out by Shamika Ravi, former member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council, India’s active cases are lower than that of France and Spain. “If this momentum is maintained, active cases will be even lower than in Britain,” added Gupta.
Similarly, coronavirus deaths per day currently stand at 587. Meanwhile, India’s case fatality rate is at 1.51, “which can’t decline much faster”, explained Gupta.
In his speech, Modi said the number of tests in India will soon touch 10 crore.
“In fact, for more than six weeks, tests have averaged more than a million a day,” Gupta said, adding that this has allowed another figure to decline — the test positivity rate.
The peak of test positivity was 15.5 per cent in July, which has now considerably declined to 4.5 per cent.
Also, for the first time since July, new coronavirus cases are below 50,000 per day.
Also read: Govt considering removing plasma therapy as Covid treatment option
India can’t let its guard down
A government-appointed panel, formed by the Department of Science and Technology, has predicted that if norms are followed, India will defeat the virus by February next year even if there is no vaccine.
“By February, you could have no more than 20,000 active cases and the virus will become endemic to certain parts of the country,” Gupta said, citing the panel’s report.
However, if norms like social distancing, hand washing and wearing masks aren’t followed, India could be heading for a bigger peak in November. Gupta cited mass rallies amid the Bihar elections and huge crowds at a Chennai sari store, Kumaran Silks, as recent examples of violations of Covid norms.
People can also become careless and fatigued with these norms, he added.
If this continues, India could have more than three times as many active cases as it does now — 25 lakh — and that could cause the health infrastructure to collapse and mortalities could triple by February, as pointed out by Manindra Agrawal, member of the DST’s committee and professor at IIT Kanpur’s Department of Computer Science.
The panel also points out that for every Covid case diagnosed, 60-65 are missed, which means more asymptomatic people are getting infected and “some kind of immunity is building in the population”. But many are still vulnerable, and therefore, the essence of PM Modi’s message is that India must not declare a victory.
“In sports, unless you play the last over, score the last run…[or] maintain your lead till the last whistle, do not declare victory because things can go wrong,” said Gupta.
Watch the latest episode of CTC here: