The world is currently confronted with hugehealth crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic. So far about 3.23 million peoplehave been infected with the virus with 2.28 lakh deaths but many thousands areadded to the toll on daily basis. Besides a health crisis, this viral pandemicis causing devastating impact on economies worldwide and what not. The worldeconomy which was already sluggish before the Coronavirus outbreak is nowcontemplated to suffer a severe recession in 2020. If the impending economiccrisis are not properly addressed through adequate policy interventions, itsimpact on the social and economic order will be humongous.
The epicentre of the virus was initiallyWuhan, China but it has now invaded the entire world, mostly affecting theEurozone and U.S. A number of theories are making rounds about the origins ofthe virus. China has claimed that the virus originated from the wet animalmarket through Bats. But serious questions are being raised on the origins ofthe virus by many including world leaders. The leaders from U.S. and Eurozoneare claiming that the virus originated from a biological lab in Wuhan. Theyfurther allege that China was not transparent rather was very secretive, as aresult of which the world could not prepare well to face the challenges arisingout from Coronavirus spread. Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump warned thatChina should face the consequences if it was “Knowingly responsible forunleashing the Coronavirus pandemic”. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel hassaid that if China is more transparent about the origin story of the virus, thebetter it would prove for everyone in the world to learn from it. The UK hasjoined US demand for getting investigations conducted by the intelligenceofficials whether the virus originated in a Wuhan virus lab or not. Given suchan emerging situation, there is a need to search answers to the followingquestions:
- What are the actual origins of this deadly type of Coronavirus?
- Have the governments of different countries failed to take a timely action to control the spread of this deadly virus?
There are allegations and counterallegations about the origins of the virus. Some papers, which now have beentaken off from the public domain did suggest the involvement of Chinese WuhanVirology Lab coming up with some biological weaponry for its use. There aresome assumptions though unfound till date that China deliberately allowed thevirus to be spread in the world with an intention to make developed economiesto suffer heavily and simply to gain economic superiority. U.S. President,Donald Trump alleges that pandemic could have been stopped if China had notfailed in its duties and the present sufferings of the whole world are becauseof the failure of the China state. Serious doubts are being raised by many bynoting that in this hour of crisis when whole world is currently grappling totackle the virus, Chinese economy has come back on the track and they areearning billions of dollars by exporting medical equipment’s, face masks andother items. Protagonists of China to the contrary are claiming it as thehandiwork of U.S. agencies with an ulterior motive to put roadblocks on theChinese economic progress so as to stopit from becoming the world economic power.
In this war of allegations and counterallegations, the only causality seems to be the truth about the origins of thevirus. It will never be known what had actually happened. Each power block ispushing its theory either out of sheer arrogance or just to settle geopoliticaland economic objectives. One thing is very clear that once the dust settles, itis going to lead to a serious geopolitical and trade war led by U. S. and itsproxies and that will have a direct bearing on the developing and theunderdeveloped world. Post Pandemic, the military confrontation does not seemto be a possibility but the cold war between the U. S./Eurozone and China isinevitable and in that case it is likely to create a new world order.
As of now, there seems to be no data tosupport these allegations and counter allegations but some study in 2013, whichtill recent past was available freely on the website, have underscored thepossibility of the origin of the coronavirus to the wet animal markets ofChina. We need to keep in mind that viruses are prone to mutations and such acharacter is a major detriment to the evolvement of vaccines against them andconsequently the infection becomes rampant. One area, where Chinese could becompletely held responsible is seemingly a major cover up with regard to theexistence, infective scale and transmissibility of such a virus. Such behaviouris highly irresponsible and is never expected from a responsible nation. Thereseems to be a role failure of WHO as well.
The food habits of the people living inChina are perhaps the root cause for the current crisis but it requires athorough investigation by biologists. The basic questions that arise here forresearch are:
- Can a human being eat everything?’…from all sorts of insects to snakes to birds and even rats, cats and dogs.
- Are these habits developed recently in these regions or there is some historical support for such kinds of food habits
No doubt, in this globe one is expected toeat anything of his choice but in major societies, this is never the case.Habit of eating everything and anything goes against the law of the nature. Allthe creatures of Allah be it; animals, birds, insects, reptiles and even humanbeings except some sections, eat selectively. Then how come people in SouthAsia Region can eat anything and everything, even such creatures whichworldwide are held unclean. Allah Almighty permits Muslims to eat selectedanimals and birds only and that too after following appropriate procedures ofhygiene. The scientists particularly, Muslim scientists, do have the problem athand to establish scientifically the reason behind the prohibition of certainanimals and birds for the benefit of mankind.
We have observed that the governments ofdifferent countries did fail miserably to take a timely action to control thespread of this deadly virus. Regardless of the origins of the Coronavirus, onceit started spreading its tentacles in the Wuhan with huge human losses andsufferings, the governments of different countries were expected to takeproactive measures to stop its entry and spread in their respective countries.China, by using a strong muscle power did succeed to a large extent in managingthis epidemic. The numbers of infected persons and consequent deaths in Chinaas of now are significantly less than the figures observed in U.S., Italy,Spain, France, U.K. and Germany. This is mainly attributed to the strict andstringent lockdown imposed in Wuhan and also partly by aggressive testing whichmany of the affected countries have failed to match till to date.
No doubt there has been some complacency onthe part of China, but the other countries cannot be exonerated for theirmiserable roles as they too failed to take a proper cue regarding the disease.All the intelligence reports and other means of getting the information fellflat. WHO also faltered but they claim that they declared an internationalemergency at a time when only 82 cases outside China and no death had beenreported but unfortunately the rest of world did not respond well to theseadvisories despite having sufficient time at their disposal. This is highlyregrettable. To the contrary, some of the countries in the neighbourhood ofChina like South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia,Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand etc. took the infection seriously and werecomparatively successful in controlling the spread of this deadly virus amongsttheir populace. This has been largely possible due to their proactiveapproaches. What has made them to win this battle so far could be the immediateand timely imposition of lockdown, and second due to the existence of adequatemedical infrastructure? Perhaps the certain unique lifestyle habits and lawabiding citizenry behaviours of the masses in these countries have played somerole as well.
Eurozone and U.S. have miserably failed tovisualise the impending catastrophe for their countries. Their governments andleaders initially ridiculed the likely consequences of this deadly virus whichby all standards proved fatal to their citizens. Knowing the fact that their people travel toother parts of world in large numbers and also large number of people visittheir countries, they needed to be more careful and very restrictive. It isbeing reported that millions of people travelled from these countries, to Chinaas well. If the governments of these countries would have imposed restrictionson international travel right in the month of February or at least quarantinedinternational travellers, there would not have been such a mass spread of thisvirus in their communities. Not to talk of imposing restrictions oninternational travel very early, such governments failed to even imposelockdown till the virus vociferously spread in their respective communities.Actually these governments weighted economics more than the human losses andsufferings mainly due to their myopic vision. Had these and other countriesbeen proactive in their approaches in dealing with this virus, the economiclosses suffered by taking an action early would have been much lesser than theeconomic losses which they are now bound to borne post the virus spread in thecommunities.
The response of India and our UT of Jammu& Kashmir to the emergency can be categorized as a response delayed by fewweeks but still better than many of the countries in Eurozone or US. Acknowledging the huge inadequacies in theirhealth sector, the political dispensation of India did take proactive approachfor early detection and isolation of the carriers particularly from China andother similar countries at the entry points followed by nationwide lockdown. Ahuge country like India is a hot bed for the spread of the infection and anymiscalculated move can prove a disaster. The political will and theapplications on ground for such a hugely populated country at least till datehas proved beneficial and contained the community spread of the virus. But there seems to be some inadequacies thatdid result in the entry of the virus into the country. The virus emerged in thelast week of December, 2019 in Wuhan China, and by the end of January the wholeworld had the full information about the contagious nature of the virus. ThoughIndia was quick enough to restrict travel from China but it failed to realisethat virus can travel through other routes. This virus mainly travelled toIndia from Europe, U.S, and Arabian countries. India restricted travel fromthese countries very late, only once this problem had taken serious dimensionsin Eurozone and U.S., but till then scores of people had entered the countryfrom these countries. Initially, the modus operandi at the entry points wasalso lackadaisical. It was a mere checking of temperature and no traveller wasquarantined. There seemed to be a delay of two weeks in the action on groundwhich included complete stoppage of international travel and also the lockdown.At the top of it, when actually these measures were taken there seemed to be noadvance planning which manifested in the chaos and confusion, particularlyamongst the migrant workers. This unfortunately, reminded us of the ‘DemonetisationBombshell” that was dropped on weaker and vulnerable sections of thesociety. Equally important lapse on the part of the government was its failureto prepare in advance for managing medical emergencies like ensuring enoughsupplies of PPEs, Test Kits, Face Masks etc.
The administrators in Kashmir thoughannounced lockdown one week earlier than the national lockdown but still wewere late at least by two weeks. If 28 day quarantine period instead of 14 dayswould have been compulsory for all those entering the valley from 15th Feb., wewould have been able to restrict the infection at the entry points only.This aggressive approach was needed toprevent entry to the virus in the valley. Stopping the entry to the unionterritory particularly to Kashmir division was not a difficult prepositionowing to the geographical location of the valley, as only two entry points i.e.the Jawahar Tunnel and the Exit Gate of Srinagar Airport were to be monitored.Besides the requisite infrastructure for 28 day mandatory quarantine period wasvery much available. We could, as we did later on, have easily used hotels andeducational institutions for quarantine. No other part of the country had sucha geographical advantage for total closure of entry as to the valley ofKashmir. But unfortunately our administrators failed to take a right decisionat right time. The success in administration lies in taking hard and rightdecisions at the right time. Failure to take timely decision for tackling thevirus in the union territory is perhaps also due to the failure of thegovernment to constitute a ‘Task Force’ mainly consisting of the medicalprofessionals who would have visualised the magnitude of impending problem andmore importantly how to control it? Bureaucracy cannot handle suchcontingencies, and it is only the technocrats who are competent to evolve apolicy framework for dealing with medical emergencies of this nature. Chinaexperience could have been replicated across. Perhaps ours will be the onlystate where bureaucrat is giving daily press briefings about Coronavirus andthis clearly indicates as to who are involved in policy decision making.Although we need not to undermine the humongous amount of efforts put in bythese bureaucrats in this tight situation and their involvement in the contacttracing leading to containment of the spread of the virus so far cannot beunderestimated but facts are facts.
Author is Professor in the Dept. of Commerce, University of Kashmir.