Should India Take A Lead From China In Fight Against Corona

Source: The Quint

With COVID-19 positive cases rising, Prime Minister Modi announced a lockdown of India
for 21 days. With experts forecasting a huge surge in cases, one of the main objectives of this

lockdown is to try to break the transmission chain and reduce the number to the level of
current capacity of the healthcare system.
China mounted a massive, “whole-of-the-State” response to the epidemic by building 16
makeshift hospitals with18,000 beds in record time to treat patients in/around the epidemic
epicentre. It also established reliable societal supply chains that delivered to each quarantined
community. China used drones in large numbers to spray disinfectants, convey samples and
carry supplies to selected patients, and also developed and began using analytics and
Artificial Intelligence for spotting infectious cases, tracking where each had been and met
whom, and then identifying, allocating priorities and treating them
By 10 March, the infections had started to decline in China, and there are indications that
normal life and economic activity maybe slowly reviving. China is the world’s second largest
economy on nominal basis and perhaps the largest on Purchasing Power Parity. However, it
is not just money that allowed China to handle this crisis, but the efficient and non-
politicised action ensured China to be well-equipped to handle coronavirus crisis.