India is now the epicenter of the global corona-virus pandemic. It is the 3rd most affected nation just after US and Brazil. In April when India had its first lock down, WHO had praised India for this courageous step taken to curb corona-virus. This step had worked initially by bringing down cases up to 40%. But as time passed by and the lock down was being extended for the public safety, there was an unspoken tension over the government of India to begin the unlock procedure.
Due to a lot of pressure on the government and the lock down going on nation-wide, a smart decision of unlocking the non-containment zones was made. Thus, the phase of Unlock 1.O began on 08th June ’20. A leap of faith landed India to Unlock 2.O then, and today Unlock 3.O has been announced. The corona-virus cases are increasing devastatingly and the scenario seems as India will be the country recording the most cases among all the other countries in the world. It may seem as the no. of cases increasing are due to the population but China has over 1 billion too.
The cases rising in India is just a reflection of its big, diverse countries facing a disadvantage dealing with pandemics. Smaller nations such as New Zealand or Thailand have an upper hand dealing with pandemics as they do not have a huge population and they can manage the no. of cases by shutting down their international borders.
The EU (European Union) consists of 27 members. Since the agreement was made 35 years ago, the EU has never been close to suspension. If the EU had not made a decision of suspending the Shengan contract it would have been impossible to control the cases in these countries.
There has been a huge pressure of beginning the Unlock procedure and this pressure differs from country to country, small nations – less pressure whereas large nations – more pressure. Large nations do economically well as they have big internal markets. But developing nations like India can barely afford to have supply chains breaking for so long. Comparing US to India, India took a step quicker to save the entire country, and sooner or later US also decided to safe guard the country by using the divided age policy.
One of the long-term consequences will be new thinking of Federal States. Even the world’s largest economy should not have a state that struggles to respond effectively to a crisis, even if it’s a once in a century crisis.
NEWS REPORTED BY:
VRIDHI BHAGNARI.
