It hasn’t been perfect, but India has done a reasonably good job on most counts: airport screening, quarantining, public awareness, and even contact tracing in most places. Yet it is feared that the community transmission of coronavirus could be upon us, a mass explosion of cases that India is not well-equipped to handle.
Let us hope that does not happen. But if it does, the main cause will be want of testing facilities. And we don’t know why India has been so slow in scaling up testing facilities. Was it lack of resources, complacency, or an effort to artificially keep the number of positive COVID-19 cases low? Perhaps it was all of these.
The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) says it has found no positive case of coronavirus in 500 randomly collected samples of respiratory disease patients in ICUs. That sort of thing is hardly a justification to not test people with symptoms. A friend of mine who thinks he has coronavirus symptoms called a government helpline all day and after finally getting through, was told to reach Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. At the hospital, dozens of people, including him, were refused a test because they had no travel history or immediate known contact with anyone who had a travel history to severely affected countries.
But what if even one of these has coronavirus? She or he could be spreading it and not taking adequate precaution, thinking that s/he can’t have the virus since the government doesn’t even feel the need to find out.
Also read: One coronavirus patient infects 1.7 people in India, much lower than in China, Italy: Study
Why mass testing is key to containing
This is the sort of mistake that every country which is now witnessing a mass explosion of cases has made. The reason Turkey has had only two coronavirus-related deaths so far, despite sharing a border with Iran, is because it has been proactive with testing. The reason the United States is seeing an exponential rise in the number of cases is that it didn’t take testing seriously. (Curiously, India banned travellers from Turkey but not the US.)
Countries and regions that have so far been able to contain, mitigate or delay the spread of coronavirus have all done so by scaling up testing. These include South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong. Of course, they were also ready with the infrastructure to deal with those who tested positive, such as quarantining them and protecting health workers and doctors.
Early and mass testing makes all the difference because, in many cases, coronavirus can be asymptomatic. Put simply, the virus may have entered your body but you do not show any symptoms at all. Unaware that you have coronavirus, you go around spreading it, making the vulnerable, such as frail and elderly people, very sick.
South Korea’s mass testing has proved that young people are getting coronavirus in large numbers but showing mild or no symptoms. By identifying and isolating such people, countries like South Korea have been able to contain the spread of the virus and keep their mortality rates low.
The importance of testing to isolate asymptomatic patients has now also been established through a mass experiment in Italy. The 3,300 residents of the small town of Vo were tested twice — all 3,300 of them. Those carrying the virus were isolated. By doing so, the spread was stopped. The number of new cases, as a result, is zero.
India is refusing to test those with symptoms. South Korea is testing even those with no symptoms.
Short of vaccination, mass testing is the best we can do, and we can do it through mass testing. It is like a race between humanity and a virus. Humanity is far behind, and we can play catch up only through testing. The silver bullet — vaccination — is more than a year away.
Also read: Yes, young people are falling seriously ill from Covid-19
No data, no problem
So why is India not testing more people? Looks like it is not about capacity. According to the Associated Press, India has the capacity of testing 8,000 samples a day and yet it is testing only 90 a day — as of 18 March. This is most strange for a country that has already seen three deaths.
Such lethargy in testing may be taken as a sign that the Narendra Modi government does not expect coronavirus to reach the stage of community transmission. But it clearly does reach that stage. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), mostly busy with the implementation of draconian citizenship laws, went back on its promise of giving a compensation of Rs 4 lakh for every coronavirus-related death. This suggests that the government fears a mass outbreak. Why, then, is it so reluctant to prevent a mass outbreak by mass testing?
The Modi government has ordered a million test kits from Germany and the ICMR has been slowly expanding testing. These measures were taken this week. They should have been taken latest by February, when it became clear that the epidemic was spreading worldwide, or at most by March first week, when it became clear that coronavirus was not going to be limited to one or two cases in Kerala.
Sadly, the Modi government has lost crucial time. The effort to contain or mitigate coronavirus pandemic in India will not look like the efforts taken in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan or Turkey.
In the United States, President Donald Trump has been heavily criticised for being behind the curve on testing. The US media has investigated the reasons for it. In India, the media is an arm of the Modi government and the opposition doesn’t exist.
Perhaps the Modi government thinks it can overcome coronavirus by fudging or hiding data, and what better way to do so by not testing people? After all, the Modi government hides farmer suicide data, consumer spending data, or simply stops using the word drought to pretend it doesn’t happen anymore.
If denial is the strategy, we are in for a rude shock very soon. Narendra Modi may want to wait for a few weeks before trying to look like a global leader at the forefront in the fight against coronavirus.
The author is contributing editor to ThePrint. Views are personal.
Dear The Print
Rise above hate
India fight coronavirus very well
Whole world appreciate India
The most idiotic article I read in recent times, have some sensitivity towards the matter and behave sensibly.
This seems to be more of a statement from opposition political party. Hopeless journalism.
You are a perfect example of negatively, at this time also stressing on “Modi” Govn. and creating panic situation.
If you can’t be a responsible writer, then please stop writing.
What’s your problem?? If our numbers will go high you people will criticize Modi Govt. why it’s so high? Govt. didn’t have taken proper steps..? Modi failed to handle the situation. Now when our numbers are low you still have a problem.. why it’s so low? You people will always have a problem with Modi Government.
Shitty artical shityy writer whity media house
Plz shut up..u idiot….modi ji is doing alll one prime minister can do….n btw plz criticise that idiot too who roamed in whole city. But we know u wil not….plz for god’s sake…if u cant stand with nation …its leader or the efforts made by him…shut ur mouth.
U people r amongst those who always pull legs .
If you think modiji is doing all that he can do, then you’re blind as a bat. Look around you, look at every country and the measures all their leaders are taking. You do not have a scientific mind to understand the depth of this outbreak right now and that’s because you are ignorant.
He is doing good with our limited resources .
If community spread happens then no one can control this even most developed nations so it is vital to curfew in intial stage exactly what he is doing .i hooe curfew will extend to contain it.
And remember we are developing nation not like europe ,italy,us with abundance of money and rss
Shivam thinks Pappu would have done better in this crisis.
Dont compare things which are at odds to each other. Editorials are mostly introspective rather than speculative or decisive for that matter. If you are a research journalist then give facts and let your readers judge you. Now coming at your criticism, let me assure that India is doing its bit right in line with its known capability. Mass testings will make the things go out of hand as common people will make the lives difficult and resort to unnecessary hoarding of groceries and medical supplies and create panic leading to chaos and anarchy. It’s a big country of great diversity in thought, political affiliations and contradictory patriotic feelings. Your article can be truly classified as vague, unrealistic and pointing irrelevant things in its true context. Modi is PM and he does not differentiate when he fights Corona.
the Day Modi will go out of BJP i dont know how Bjp, Print, Quint, jajeerA, bbc etc will sustain. Hope i will be wrong.
i think this reason will be secondary we are saying this on hindsight possibilities of many factors like availability of testing kits in our country and other aspects but primary reason is irresponsibility of some literate fools.
I think you are right that modi govt is slow and unaware and thats why people like you can excrete from mouth.
This is the most crucial time for our country and if you can not support the country then you must shut up ?
It is important to optimize whatever steps have to be taken. There can be many views.
The testing kits for Corona are limited.
But important is that no country can do what China can do. Nobody can talk against them unlike here where we sit on Dharna and no body can kick us. This is INDIA. We are all at mercy of some stupid citizens who are least bothered about the consequences. Kanika Kapoor is one such example.
Also nowadays the posts are colored by religion rather than sense. Let us all fight this Chinese dragon and kick it out.
SAY NO TO CHINESE PRODUCTS AND CHINESE VIRUS
I believe we are lucky to have a leader who is concerned about us wherever we are irrespective of geographical location, age,religion etc and we try to blame for whatever he does. When the whole world is praising his initiatives, we leave no stone unturned to blame him. I feel very sorry about the mental situation of the writer of this article
The author seems utterly biased with usage of ‘Modi government’ consistently! Such kind of fear inducing, biased articles should be removed. Mr.Author, this is not the time to create hate politics, its time to be united and show the truth!
Shivam, truly you are a negative person with bad insight. You have radical thoughts for our country and Modiji. Please grow up and write logical reports and not this ….
Good article!!!!
But in last two paragraph you tried to target PM by mentioning his name…
You can criticize the govt. but i think this is not the right time while congress leader Shashi Tharoor is praising the govt.
U now karama….u write bad against someone..despite all d efforts he is putting for his country…then probably u will get bad ( God is watching u idiot) get ready for covid 19.
Don’t you see what is going on in Italy, learn from others mistakes.
I want to save this post for future so i will wtite this post in my diary.
Can india do mass testing ????
I support janta curfew……
Thirdclass thinking of the writer. never ever read anything from the print. they are the stupidest i ever seen.
This is a pathetic article by the Congress to bring bad image to the effort done by Modi Government. People have to listen and not be idiots to do their own thing. When you are quarantined after tested positive or assumed to be positive, shut yourself down for 2 weeks. don’t be an hero to show off your youth roaming around and infecting all other people.
The facts that he mentioned Modi serveral times in negative light and also mentioned CAA as draconian prooves that the author has an axe to grind and expresses, his hate to Modi. Nothing else, othersiwse how do we explain how this is connected to CAA and how CAA is draconian. This few bits if information shows the actual state of the authors mind, and therefore the whole article can be safely discarded as rubbish and article by a demented guy who wants to express something.
Stupid, spreading only negativity …
Good article. But the writer lost my trust when he intentionally mentioned ‘modi government’ at least 20 times in the article. It’s obvious that the writer wamts to defame the government than actually cover the news.
what kind of stupid author is this, he is saying 90 test per day, from all 62 testing sites, if at all we get out of this mess, first thing to be done is to sort out this foreign funded, money hungry, shameless prestitutes…
ICMR themselves have clarified that they are doing only 70-80 tests daily across India. Author didn’t make it up. India has capacity of 8000 tests per day but has conducted only 13000 total tests so far.
PAI PEINT MEDIA.The AUTHOR is BAISED and ILLITERATE PERSON going into politics of CRR ,
Does he know meaning of DRACONIAN LAW …
health is a state subject
I know many people in HM and Health ministry , and their preparedness to tackle this Corona virus ..
Modi gov emphasise for establishing medical college in every district.But people favour who gives everything free like water, electricity and buses.We also favour Intruder of other countries and against population control.
Another rubbish article by Shivam. Anyways lets not give much attention to him or Print and both are communist driven and nothing productive can ever be expected from such ideology. Shivam please do better research before writing something and without any bias or putting ur ideology into the matter.
When elite class people like kanika kapoor don’t feel any sense of duty , what will modi do.
Basic public health rule is to prevent importation of virus from outside countries you quarantine whoever is coming from those countries irrespective of test status. Clearly there is negligence.
Arre, abhi corona aaya na toh sab Modi ki galti. Dekho, jab US aur China lad rahe the toh Modiji ne hi Wuhan mein virus dalwaya tha. Healthcare jaisi state subject par bhi hume bilkul Modiji ko hi blame karna chahiye. CAA ka bhi frustration issi article mein nikalna tha.
Covid -19 se dar Q iske pahele bhi mahamari ayaa hai tab bhi Use kaboo kia gaya tha… Aapke man agar dar toh ladne se pahele haar jaoge…..be positive
Boss few things:
1. Biased article , are you a modi hater or Pappu supporter.
2. You dont understand or dont want to undestand the reasoning behiend such approach. There is no point explaining this to you due to point 1.
3. Keep your virus in your body and mind don’t spread it in society through such articles.
4. Get your data and stats right.
5. When everyone is showing solidarity and first time people are getting united – you people are working against society and the nation.
6. Who pays you to write all this shitty things.
same people who tought you english language
You are a blockhead Vij and this article is ridiculous. The print should take it down and forbid this fool from spreading his sickness.
It is not 90 a day. It is 90 per lab each day. In effect we are testing higher numbers than quoted here. Plz do not copy from al jazeera and india today.
Everybody is busy hyperventilating about his criticism of the government while totally missing the point. People in this country have their priorities twisted.
So true,
Avalanche is near and we are without any weapon to combat. So what! we will fight ? with our positivity, beating thali, clapping and so on. Still we don’t have any plans to lock down. See the scenario in public places like banks. I can just say wish us all d best WITH ALL D POSITIVITY.
Read more about coronavirus: https://mytest145293087.wordpress.com/2020/03/20/what-is-corona-virus/
Thanks for adding Citizenship amendment Act into your covid 19 related topic. What else can we expect from you.
Do you know Health comes under state or central govt ?
May be you didn’t. Health is state subject.. Central govt can provide assistance but its jobs of state govt to use it successfully.
It does not matter whose govt is in state.
Most of the Indians never paid any tax!!! Plenty of black money
Still keeping the streets dirty and asking the government to build hospitals and clinics.
Jago Jago! pay proper taxes and get good services.
Too much emphasis is given on tests. To prevent entry and propagation of virus restrictions on flights and quarantine of all who came from affected countries for 14 days should have been done when cases were nil or few. People may call the authorities paranoid but that should not have mattered.
Crap article. Author seems to be a Modi-hater but nothing else.
The author has also writtern an article titled “The Delhi progrom 2020 is Amit Shah’s answer to an election defeat”. These guys care about only one thing that is “mudi bad” and don’t care about giving facts to people.
I also agree what u have said
What to do if I have to share something where can I send it
When the views of the author are personal ,they ought to be vindictive and biased. The Print, always prints against BJP government. Sold media as usual. Nobody believes this kind of shit anymore. There is limit to politicising things. Have some morality dumb morons.
Well
Never expected the print or Viz to spread virus
Well
He quotes turkey as an example
There r 193 cases n two deaths
Compare populations
Thereafter he compares two great countries for a robust system
Italy n South Korea
Can we get more stupid than that
Hello idiot modi hater who has written this article just to demonize the modi government, how much are you paid by the ailing Congress, lol, what a shame, journalists like you should not exist, please inject yourself with Corona, you idiot, you seem to be preparing for the 2024 elections, idiot writer, thousands are dying and still you are busy criticizing modi just because you are a liberal. Liberals support cow eating, pig eating etc and it’s because of you liberals that diseases like these even come into existence, the plague(black death) was a result of liberals eating every animal possible, it spread to a vegetarian nation (oops only vegetarian nation of that time when Islam didn’t invade us) India and innocent vegans died here, you idiot liberal journalist, quit your job, you Rahul Gandhi’s bootlicker.
Okay so eating cow meat will get you infected but not there piss ??? lol here trying to convey muslims doesn’t eat every possible animal just like hindu doesnt drink piss of every animals its upon pure belief and therefore respect every relegion! Filhaal fight humanity ki he this is gods nrc and caa! Months ago the threat was how we will proove our nationalities but here we are bringing every indian citizen and trying to fight covid-19 together.. # staysafe
Does my comment encourage you to drink cow urine?, And drinking cow urine immediately after a cow urinates will never give you infection, in fact drinking your own piss won’t give you any infection since it’s just filtered water, urine doesn’t contain infection, it gets infected after coming in contact with the dirt and other bacterias, however eating meat and drinking cow urine are two totally different things, I respect Hinduism only, thanks. Had there been no Islam or Christianity then we would never ever have seen an epidemic like this and the plague i.e., black death.
Did you miss your meds again?
You seem to have missed your meds for neurosis.
Also, there is no sanitation in Government Hospitals, cleaning staff doesn’t work & people are sharing the quality of the wards. But “Our” Toxic Population is saying that if that place is not clean, you should clean it & not complain. Seriously? Rather than reporting the cleaning staff, they’re blaming those who’ve been quarantined, that they should clean the place & 1 thing I’m not blaming the Govt. here rather the hospital staff. Building more hospitals is an important task on which the Govt. should focus on right now, but to keep the Hospitals clean & sanitized should not be put on the 2nd priority as sanitation must be the part of living.
Govt guidelines clearly state that you must quarantine yourself for 8-10days if you have flu like symptoms and wear a mask to protect others.
True that you covid-19 testing is only for persons who were abroad or in contact with someone abroad. I think this makes sense from view of using testing capacity efficiently because at any time a large number of people will likely have cough and cold and hence testing every suspect cold/ fever is just not feasible.
I am not a bjp fan nor congress but he is saying truth, the goverment workers not doing duty with dedication they money earner nothing more, i called corona helpline then they said dont worry nothing will happen go for near clinic and checkup you may have viral fever.
Please understand the gravity of the situation Mr. AUTHOR…don’t try to do politics in these situations…. Foolish article