India bets on heat, remains unprepared for coronavirus

Hyderabad: India is not prepared to handle an outbreak of coronavirus (Covid-19) if it broke out or spread anywhere in the country. The only narrow focus of the health system has been to preventing a breakout of the disease by putting all efforts in trying to prevent anyone affected by it from coming into the country and hope we are spared of the epidemic.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday that a “robust screening system has prevented and kept Covid-19 out of India.”

According to senior health officials, if a secondary breakout does occur anywhere in the country as has been the case in South Korea, Italy and Iran, then all bets are off in containing the disease. “God forbid, if we have a situation like in Wuhan,” a top Telangana official said on Monday, adding, “we are only prepared to isolate identified cases in small numbers.”

India’s present strategy rests solely on preventing entry of the virus through a rigorous screening process of all international travellers from countries that have been hit by coronavirus, officials aver.

“It is for the Centre to take a call on how to deal with an outbreak, if it occurs. All states are strictly focused on following the Central guidelines. The Centre has restricted itself to screening of international passengers,” a senior health official said.

Police says it’s ready for crowd control
“In our kind of society, if an outbreak does occur, then it will be out of our hands,” the official said.

The Centre appears to have placed its bets on heat, and hope. Opinion gathered after speaking to a series of officials indicate to a belief of the Centr that the virus would not survive in India’s tropical temperatures range of 32 degrees or 33 degrees Celsius, and higher, given that the summer season is looming ahead.

“The fact is we are still learning about the virus. China is reporting some 350 cases of disease recurrence in people, after they were treated and declared Covid19-free. So far, it has been observed that the countries where the outbreaks are being reported from have temperatures varying from five degrees to 15 degrees Celsius. How exactly will the new coronavirus behave in heat is a matter up for debate,” an official involved in India’s battle against COVID-19 said.

Within the state too, an official said “our arrang-ements are not foolproof.”

A senior official of the state police department, the physical execution arm of the government when it comes to crowd control, said that they have already made contingency plans.

“We have contingencies for issues involving maintenance of law and order. In a possible scenario of containing an area as part of quarantine, the government would have to give orders,” the official said.