 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we're going to be talking about both the global COVID-19 situation as well as the situation specifically in India, which has now become the country with the second highest number of cases. We also know that it is the country with the highest number of cases on a single day for the past close to 20 days at least. And we have Praveer Pukhaysar to speak more about this. Praveer, so could you first start by looking at what are the global trends that we see? What are the epicenters and how does the progress of the disease seem to be happening? Well, if we look at the global figures and it's very, very clear that the three most affected countries are the United States, India and Brazil. And these are roughly between themselves, more than half of the total cases in the world. So these are the three countries which are in the center of what is the epidemic, followed by countries like Russia, Peru, Colombia, South Africa, there are a bunch of them after that. But as I said, half the world's total cases are in these two countries, three countries. If we look at new cases, it's even sharper. There you will find that in the new cases India is more than 90,000, US is more than 30,000, Brazil is about 14 and a half, 15,000. These are the three countries. After that, all the other countries are below 10,000. And if we take out even Brazil, which is really about 15,000, then India and the United States, between them are really seeing the bulk of the new cases. So this is the current picture that we see. Yes, the epidemic has spread to the entire globe. The very few countries are outside it. But nevertheless, the major epicenters, if you will, of the disease of the epidemic is really these three countries. Now, it doesn't mean therefore the other countries are not going to their own crisis. They are. Of course, if we look at the number of cases per million, India is still low. That's because India has a very large population base. But the disturbing part about the India's growth, and if we look at the India's charts, which we have on news clip, for example, you will see the graph of new cases or the graph of total cases, what is called as basically the slope. It shows you the speed at which the epidemic is developing. In India has been constant for the last three to four months. And that is surprising, because most countries, either because of natural reasons, that is the pool of infected people burn out because the numbers of people already in that area have been infected. And then it looks for new areas to spread. And then you can get a in that sense in Interagnum before it takes off again. So you get this this kind of figures if like in the like in Brazil, for instance, where you really have no measure, the government seems to have taken people have taken measures, they have social distance themselves, they're using masks, the government is a nothing. So in that cases, you do find that after some time, still the epidemic starts to slow down in other places because of the lockdown, the slowdown takes place. In the US, as we know, we have had a muddled policy, sometimes on, sometimes off, initially off a completely muddled response by the US government, the public health system has been in shambles, all of that we know. And that has led to slowing down, increase, slowing down, increase as a cycle. And as you can see, US, now if you look at the map, you'll find new areas coming under the grip of the epidemic. India on the other hand, which had a very draconian lockdown, it's interesting, it didn't serve any purpose, except of course, destroying the productive forces of the economy. So you don't see in India any impact of the lockdown because it was premature, there was no preparedness for the lockdown. That is, it explains why India's had the biggest hit to the economy of any of the large economies. If you take the large 20 economies of the world, what's called the G20, you'll find India's GDP drop is the sharpest. That's also because India made no preparation for the lockdown, imposed a lockdown without any warning. And that, that is why the economy took a big hit. At that time, when the lockdown was imposed, India had only about 600 odd cases. So it is also a completely premature lockdown in the belief that we'll be able to crush the epidemic completely. What they didn't realize is that in order to do that, you need really a good system by which you can identify who are the people infected. At that stage, people who are really coming in from outside who are infected and interdict them, stop the disease further by isolating them, quarantining them and of course treating them and also completely contact tracing. It was manageable at that stage without such a draconian lockdown. Instead of that, the lockdown meant that we focused on the other hand, how to stop people from meeting each other, how to impose a lockdown, how to get food to people. All the paraphernalia which a lockdown requires for a state to deliver, focus was really on that. So instead of really the focus being on what should have been, which is how at the initial stage to look at the people who are coming from outside who could be infected and stopping that. And don't forget, India has close connections to West Asia. It is close connections to Southeast Asia and also to the United States and Europe. So you had various sources of people coming in, not many from China. So these were the sources to which infections did arrive. And if you could have focused on that in the first three months, maybe the economy would not have taken such a big hit. Instead of that, we closed the economy down. It didn't help. The economy not only suffered, but even the quarantining of the people, all those measures failed because at the end of it, people had to go home to eat, eat. Their families were to survive. So essentially the lockdown became porous. And therefore the purpose of the lockdown, when the infection started to increase, that is the time and the purpose of the lockdown was defeated. As a consequence, the lockdown served very little purpose in terms of stopping the epidemic. And now we are in various phases of unlock down. We are calling it the unlock down for by which even the metros will start, for instance, in Delhi. Once we do that, you can see the epidemic which Delhi had started to come down again going up. So you are starting to see a repeat search after the, you know, various measures were taken that it came down. It's also starting to go up again. So it simply shows that there does not seem to be a thinking in the government, how to combine health, economy, society, all of it together. And the three months, four months of the lockdown on lockdown, as we call it sequence that we have built in this, the health stress system, which needed to be strengthened, does not seem to have been strengthened. We find, for instance, ventilators not available in district towns, in other states, which are relatively economically poorer. In those places, these things don't seem to be there. So the strengthening of the public health system which should have been attempted in this period was also not possible because you're under a lockdown. So all your focus was really the lockdown, how to do that. So we decided there is only one instrument to solve the problem of the epidemic, the police lockdown. And we did not regard it as a public health issue as a public health system and how to involve the state, the local governments and the central government work out a policy that also includes the people. Instead of that, we had a completely alienating police approach to the problem. And as we see, the draconian lockdown was also a very porous lockdown. We suffered on both counts. And at the moment, we don't seem to have any weapons in our hands to stop the epidemic. So now we are asking the police again to impose masks and other things. And of course, police is imposing this, you can see car drivers being hauled up for not having masks. Now, the reason perhaps is that they will at least pay the fines that goes into the police funds as well. So as a consequence, it may fund the police partially, but it doesn't really mean much to the rest of the infection spreading people because police doesn't think really changing as poor, poor man on the street on a cycle is going to get the much fines. So they are willing therefore to target those who will pay the fines rather than the people who need to wear the mask. So even here, public health policy and using the police as an instrument is really the problem that this government seems to have. And we don't seem to see the health ministry, its officials in public arena at all. So I think India has really a big problem on its hands. It's interesting, Brazil is the other country with the government has done nothing. It's basically given up. That has also very high figures. And of course the United States which has distinguished itself by dismantling whatever public health system it had. It always had a very poor public health system compared to the size of the economy. It's one of the richest countries in the world without doubt. But when it came to public health, it believed public health was equivalent to socialist medicine. In fact, there are two reasons why they were against public strengthening public health. The belief that it is something which is alien to the American culture. It does not lead to individuals taking responsibility for themselves. And this is too much of statism. And we have the famous campaign that Ronald Reagan led for the doctors who as you know in America, they're very wealthy and a very powerful social group. And of course the insurance companies who called it socialized medicine. So public health was thought to be equivalent to socialized medicine. Of course it also puts in place a very strong sector whose interests are not to strengthen public health. Don't forget, it's money which comes from ill health. Money doesn't come from healthy people. Only when you fall sick, you pay doctor's fees, you go and pay, get yourself admitted to hospital, you pay hospital fees. And of course, ill health also helps you sell pills, injections and so on. So with the pharmaceutical industry, industry, the insurance industry, the hospital, private hospital industry, all of this come together against a force of supporting public health policies. Public health anyway was weak in the United States. And then the Trump who distrusted completely the public institution and of course, a right-wing Republican sections who have been strong in the Trump administration. FDA has taken a hit. FDA has been sidelined. Robert Redfield is anyway a problematic head of FDA. Other institutions which are there for public health systems don't seem to have worked. When Trump was saying everything is hunky gnawing, obviously they could not prepare themselves for testing masks, all the things they really required because that would send a contrary political message. So when the epidemic hit them hard, they had no records and therefore they got into an immediate crisis. But more than that, even now, the economy versus epidemic is the other thread we hear. And what we have been arguing and what all public health figures are also arguing, that unless you control the epidemic, you are not going to see economy come back because people are not going to spend money in restaurants, will go out and go to cinema halls, all the other things go and shop for goods. So a whole bunch of activities which at the end of it lead to consumption will not take place as long as the epidemic continues. And unfortunately, there is no control in these three countries, whichever epidemic it works. And it's interesting to note, all of these three are left led by right-wing policy makers who do not believe in public health, who believe in private health care, who believe in only big capital solving the problems or the big stick. And as we know, neither the big stick nor the big money bags will solve the problem of public health. And that's staring us in the face. Long-term vaccine, of course, is the only answer, but that at least six months away, mass vaccination will not take place before the middle of 2021, at least in the poorer countries. And if it does take place, we'll still have to see who will get the vaccine, which countries will get the vaccine, will countries which are where the bulk of the world's population are, will they get it or will it go to the richest first and the richest second and only then to the rest of the world? So those are the questions still to be answered. Thank you so much for talking to us. That's all your time for today. 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