Alternate viewpoint on COVID-19

COVID -19 also known as Corona Virus is the only issue discussed, debated and perceived  these days. Various strategies to fight Corona includes-

-Social distancing

-Quarantine

-Stay at home

- Lockdown

Out of these last option i.e. Lockdown has a huge economic cost.

It has been found that COVID- 19 is a very dangerous virus in terms of being infectious i.e. its transmission rate in humans is very high in comparison to other variety of virus which makes its more dangerous in comparison to other viruses .
 All the above strategies to fight this virus serves only one purpose i.e. Buying Time. At present this time is being used to augment medical facilities / infrastructure in the country in terms of Ventilators, Dedicated beds for patients of Corona , Masks and PPE kits for medical personnel, medicines like Hydroxychloroquine  etc and in few countries carrying out research for vaccine or medicine for this  this virus. At present we don’t have any scientific cure or vaccine against this virus. By these strategies per say this virus can’t be eradicated. Looking into its characteristics whole population is bound to get infected by this virus.

Even if we are able to make a vaccine for it, predictions are that it would not be available for mass consumption before first quarter of next year. Since it is a highly contagious virus it would be necessary to inoculate all  across the world  i.e. 7 bn people looking into the amount of globalisation in every aspect of our life. There would be many issues for inoculation of whole world population -

1.     Cost- Vaccine cost of swine flu is around Rs. 800 – Rs 1200 in retail market. So for 7 bn people this cost would be around Rs. 5600 bn to Rs. 8400 bn. A huge cost. Who would finance it?

2.     Logistics- In how much time such quantity of vaccine would be made available and transported to every part of world.

3.  Mutations in virus strain- Till date 125 types of virus strains have been identified of Covid-19. Would this mutation time less than or more than the time to produce , transport and inoculate whole population ? Since multiple virus strains have been identified and it’s  been mutating so we can never be sure that the vaccine discovered will be effective against all the strains. Hence it might be long before there is a universal vaccine for its cure.

4.     Opportunity cost of lockdown would also needs to be taken into consideration.

During this lockdown citizens should know what medical facilities have been generated on daily basis and also the cost of lockdown each day. If we talk of India we are not sure how many people died due to COVID -19 because of unavailability of a ventilator. Recently an Inspector of Indore police died due to COVID- 19 in spite of the fact that 85% of his infection was cured, he tested negative twice and was about to be discharged. So what is the point of such augmentation of medical infrastructure when it is unable to cure this infection at this high cost of lockdown. Due to Lockdown we are loosing economic wealth very rapidly which is required heavily to fight against this virus. Also once the supply chain gets disrupted it takes lot of time in getting restored as most activities are interdependent and we fall into a catch 22 situation.  As final product of an industry might be raw material for one industry and intermediate product for another.

Alternative approach can be-

•        Follow the norms of physical distancing
•        Hygiene like washing of hands , use of mask in public place etc.
•        Opening of lockdown.
•     Sealing of Hotspots
•        Containment of only elderly and people with some form of previous medical issues.

Risk associated with this approach would be rapid transmission of virus in the population which would lead to increase in deaths of vulnerable (people with pre -existing diseases or very weak immunity, aged people etc.). But it would also develop Herd Immunity in the population and majority of people would gain immunity in a natural way without any vaccination and would also not be further carrier of this virus. 
Dilemma wrt to deaths of people will always remain- It is the economics which usually decide up to when a patient can be kept on a ventilator or can be shifted to a higher more specialized medical centre. Most of the poor people die because of unaffordability of a treatment. Moreover death rate of Covid -19 is far less than other common disease like malaria, tuberculosis , AIDS , Cancer etc. Govts. these days seems to be very much concerned about health of its citizens these days. Use of tobacco , consumption of liquor etc. is harmful for health but still these products are not banned by the Govts. world-wide. It is economics which decides such issues. So why special treatment in case of COVID-19?

We do not know what would be the new virus in near future, its form and characteristics. With lockdown we lose economic edge required to fight this virus , the fight which is highly resource intensive. So the alternative approach can be opening up of the economy and aggressively research on prevention and cures of COVID-19. In the meantime things can be taken care by the concept of Herd Immunity.