Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The top epidemiologist who tried to persuade then US President Donald Trump in early 2020 to clamp a nationwide lockdown to break the chain of the first wave of Covid-19, has now advised India to do likewise for a few weeks to contain the second wave which has turned the South Asian country into the world’s most infected place in April.
Without naming any government, he said one of the things that should have been recognized was that “victory was declared maybe too prematurely”.
China had a big explosion of coronavirus cases a year ago, they completely shut down, he said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Adviser to three American Presidents, including the incumbent Joe Biden, has suggested a lockdown in India for a few weeks as an immediate step to contain the spread of the super-virus as its deadly second wave shows no signs of ebbing.
On Saturday, India hit a record daily high with over 4 lakh new infections, while the active cases crossed the 3.2 million mark.
In an interview with The Indian Express, he said another most important thing is to get enough supplies of oxygen, medication, PPEs, etc. immediately. Looking at the magnitude of the crisis, India should look at putting together a crisis group that would meet and starts getting things organized.
“Well, one of the things you really need to do, to the extent that you can, is shut down temporarily the country, I think is important. If we want to time out and go back to what I said: there is the immediate, the intermediate, and the long-range (measures to contain the virus).
“I think the most important thing in the immediate is to get oxygen, get supplies, get medication, get PPE, those kinds of things but also, one of the immediate things to do is to essentially call a shutdown of the country,” said Dr. Fauci.
It is not necessary to shut down for six months, but it can be a temporary one to put an end to the cycle of transmission. So one of the things to be considered is to temporarily shut down, he said.
“Literally, lockdown so that you wind up having less spread. No one likes to lock down the country. Well, that’s a problem when you do it for six months,” he said. But just a few weeks of lockdown could have a significant impact on the dynamics of the outbreak.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said lockdown should be the “last resort” to deal with the raging pandemic and asked states to convince migrant workers to stay put at their places of work with a guarantee for their lives and livelihood. Some states resorted to local lockdowns and curfews.
The second wave has infected lakhs and killed thousands every day for the past few days. Many people died due to a lack of medical facilities, including oxygen.
“I heard from some of the people in the street bringing their mothers and their fathers and their sisters and their brothers searching for oxygen. They seem to think there really was not any organization, any central organization, Dr. Fauci said.
Underlining that vaccination plays a crucial role in handling the coronavirus situation, he said if India, a country of 1.4 billion people, has fully vaccinated only two percent of its total population, then it has a very long way to go.
“You’ve got to get supplies. You’ve got to make contractual arrangements with the various companies that are out there in the world. There are many companies that now have vaccines. I think you have to negotiate with them to try and get a commitment,” he said.
“And also, India is the largest vaccine-producing country in the world. That’s the thing you should rev up your own capabilities to make vaccines, he added.