New Delhi: India recorded its first case of Covid-19 in January 2020 and since then over 1.58 lakh people have lost their lives to the virus.
A new book by ThePrint journalist Abantika Ghosh traces the gripping tale of India’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The book, titled ‘Billions Under Lockdown‘, published by Bloomsbury will be released on 18 March on ‘SoftCover’ — ThePrint’s e-venue to launch select non-fiction books.
Between the ‘janata curfew’ and the country’s first Covid-19 vaccination drive, the book offers the inside story of the massive machinery that has been working to fight the little-understood virus.
Ghosh tracks the pandemic in the country with accounts from epidemiologists from the National Centre for Disease Control, describing them as India’s “disease detectives”, bureaucrats, who became the face of the government’s Covid-19 response, and public health experts.
But despite the government’s seemingly dogged resolve to keep the virus at bay, its armour was ever-evolving, and sometimes even faulty in the face of an unlikely and unknown enemy.
“When cops replace health workers in the field and cardiologists replace epidemiologists on the policy high table, it spells serious trouble for a country. And trouble erupted soon,” Ghosh writes.
Then there are accounts from states like Bihar, whose dismal health infrastructure had everyone guessing if it would survive a pandemic, and the controversy around the prescription of hydroxychloroquine as prophylaxis for healthcare workers, despite the lack of evidence.
Abantika Ghosh is one of the most well-regarded reporters in the public health domain in the country and has more than 20 years of experience.
An alumna of Presidency College, she has worked with media houses like The Statesman, The Times of India and The Indian Express. At ThePrint, she heads the teams covering Covid-19.
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