A Year Since Janata Curfew, How Close Is the Pandemic’s End?
A total of 40,715 fresh cases were reported in the last 24 hours to add to the tally of 1,16,86,796.
It’s been a year since India went into a complete lockdown to combat COVID-19. Lakhs of Indians since have lost their lives, their loved ones, health, social circles and we all lost our daily routine.
It's been a year of exercising at home, dining tables becoming the new classroom and workstations, and adopting new terms like “social distancing” and “herd immunity” in our vocabulary.
Though the lockdown was taken as a public health measure, it also showed us the reality of our public healthcare system and the growing inequalities in India, with the exodus of thousands of migrant workers walking hundreds of kilometers back home, local businesses and industries shutting down, and billionaires still managing to increase their wealth during all the turmoil.
As we still assess whether the lockdown was a success or failure a year after its announcement, the COVID-19 threat is far from over as India is witnessing a steady uptick of cases across the country in just the last two weeks, indicating, that we are in fact in a “second wave”.
It has been a year of calculated risk for many thus it is critical to look at not just what the lockdown did to prevent the spread of COVID-19 but also evaluate where we went wrong.
So in today’s episode, we will go through how India has tackled the virus this past year, the COVID-19 situation right now, and the road ahead.
To discuss the year in lockdown, for today’s episode, I spoke with DR K Srinath Reddy, a cardiologist, and epidemiologist, and the President of the Public Health Foundation of India.
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