India takes a scenario-based approach in tackling corona

While the lockdown has helped flatten the covid-19 curve and reduced the number of so-called red zones, 27 districts still account for 68% of the country’s total caseload. Further, according to reports, the worst-affected cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Indore and Hyderabad now account for 40% of India’s disease burden.

Taking these facts into consideration, the health ministry said that the country is preparing for a “scenario-based approach” in tackling the disease. The Union health ministry, in its updated containment plan, said “containment for large outbreaks through geographic quarantine strategy calls for near absolute interruption of movement of people to and from a relatively large defined area where there is single large outbreak or multiple foci of local transmission”.

Suresh Sharma, head of the population research centre at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi said that public health experts have recommended the lockdown to continue in areas where there is a high disease burden. “The strategy should be to test all the people in these districts and treating the positive cases. Mass testing is what we need first in these districts,” he noted.