India woke up late to the coronavirus pandemic. Even as the infection was sweeping through a number of countries, the Indian government kep...
India woke up late to the coronavirus pandemic. Even as the infection was sweeping through a number of countries, the Indian government kept international flights open for most of March – a critical mistake that allowed people infected with Covid-19 to enter the country in significant numbers.
However, India tried to make up for a late start by clamping down with the world’s harshest lockdown. Starting March 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a complete lockdown across the country, in a bid to stop people-to-people interactions and slow the spread of infections.
This lockdown lasted for 75 days until the Union government started what it called “Unlock 1” from Monday.
In spite of the severity of the lockdown, however, India has struggled to control its cases. “Under India’s lockdown, the curve did not bend,” said T Sundaraman, the former executive director of the National Health Systems Resource Centre, an advisory body to the health ministry.
Over the past week, India’s cases have grown at one of the fastest rates across the world, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Not only did India see its cases shoot up, even the geographical spread of the infection was not contained with lockdown. On April 6, for example, India had 417 districts without any cases....
