 Hello and let's talk about India's new COVID-19 records. The disease shows no sign of abating in the country. Numbers released this morning show that the total number of cases is crossed 8,78,000 with over 301,000 active cases. The number of deaths is close to 23,200. In the 24 hours preceding today morning, 28,700 new cases were reported and 500 new deaths were reported too. India continues to be the top three countries in terms of cases in the world with the US which is over 33 lakh cases and Brazil which is over 18 lakh cases. The media has been focusing on the Bachchan family contracting COVID-19 but many more developments continue to take place. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Pesbengal, Bihar and Chhattisgarh all reported their single highest day infections. Stricter restrictions are in place in major cities in Maharashtra. Bangalore is set to go into lockdown from tomorrow for a week, making it the latest metro city after Chennai and Mumbai which also took this route earlier. Uttar Pradesh too went for a 55 hour lockdown from Friday. What does the trajectory of the disease look like in India? We speak in news clicks. Prabhuprika has said to find out. Thank you Prabhuprika for joining us. So you just talked about how the number of new cases continues to rise at an alarming rate. It's crossed 25,000 mark for the past couple of days and India is of course still number third but the number of new cases in terms of number of new cases is second. So could you first take us through what the patterns and variations are regarding the numbers especially in the country? Well before we go into the country itself, let's look at what we should look at in terms of the COVID-19 epidemic itself because as it progresses, obviously we are not talking right now of being able to stop the COVID-19 epidemic that we were not going to do what China did, stopped it in its track or some of the other countries have also done. We are really talking now about how to cope with the pandemic and how to slow it down in a way that we can at least control the aftermath which is that if people do fall sick, we should be able to take care of them and we should also be able to take care of the economic consequences of the pandemic. These are the two really issues and I must confess that when we look at the countries it's interesting to see the three clearly right wing strong men kind of figures who have been leading the countries, the United States, India, Brazil are all at the at the moment at the top and nothing seems to be stopping them. It's interesting that if you look at the US it still has the single highest number of new infections and it has been so for a considerable period of time and as people are saying they are seeing a surge where they never really saw a dip, they never really saw a dip but they're seeing a surge. Really India is now the second highest new infections in the world just after the United States. The third is Brazil, the fourth and it's quite a bit way down is South Africa. We were third earlier, we are now overtaken Brazil. The Brazil is more than twice our total number of cases. It means that we are speeding up even beyond Brazil which virtually has been functioning without any control whatsoever except what people have done, not what the government has done. India in spite of the lockdown, spite of other things that we have claimed, we still are in this particular way, speeding full speed shall we say full speed ahead and that's very, very disturbing that we are not in a position to really do anything about it is the picture that we seem to get. If you look at the other part which is the government of India seems to be claiming and ICMR is on record and saying this again and again that we have not reached community transmission. I don't know what actually they mean by community transmission. This is a new definition they have created by which they can keep on denying community transmission. Clearly we are in community transmission. We do not know who is infecting whom and when you have a figure which is so large as we already have to talk about not having community transmission is just bunker. I think the clear message is we are in community transmission and we are in community transmission in a number of places. What are those places? Of course we have talked about in our charts and you will see we have charts which show for instance what are the main states which are seeing this and we are also looking at cities which are seeing the COVID-19 pandemic epidemic progress and in this cities it's interesting when you look at for instance say Maharashtra you will find that while Mumbai has slowed up somewhat and we have figures to show that today Thane is going ahead Thane is really has bad figures but even Thane is slowing down a bit but if you look at for instance you can take Pune. Pune suddenly sees a sharp rise again after being in control for some time it suddenly seems to show a sharp rise and other thing that we see is there are other districts of Maharashtra which are also going if you accumulate the numbers if you see just the new cases I'm not talking the total cases so talk about the new cases which show you what's happening right now you will find that the rest of Maharashtra has overtaken also either Mumbai, Pune or Thane singly if you take each of them and single in state districts only that therefore if you divide Maharashtra into Thane, Pune, Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra rest of Maharashtra is also you know today is coming out that it seems to be going up pretty fast now there again if we look at which parts of Maharashtra is happening you will find again that the pattern seems to be it starts from Bombay, spreads to Thane, Cosmoone is independent and then spreads to nearby districts and of course there are other towns in Maharashtra you have Nakhpur you have Sholapur or various other towns so each of them could also become the focus of new infections so if you want to really control the pandemic it's very clear now you have to go by district by district see where which districts are coming up in your radar and take appropriate action which is as Kerala has stopped time again test, track and treat this is the only way you can control the epidemic and of course we have to also see that when people fall ill that the hospital system is able to take care of them that means you must have capacity in the hospitals to take care of the seriously in patients not just the mild patients mild patients need to be removed from the general pool so they don't infect others but it's really something which is more in terms of taking care to see that they don't become serious if they do then remove the hospital quickly but also remove them from the rest of the population who might otherwise infect so we are really in that kind of scenario and of course we have to see the last part of it which is medicine it's very clear that the dexamethasone is something which is effective particularly for very serious patients of a critical patients and while there are this drugs which are basically what are called monoclonal antibody drugs which are patented which are expensive to produce and do cost quite a lot those drugs also can some of them do address inflammation but dexamethasone is cheap widely available drug and can be very easily used so the standard course of medic medication should be if you're critical blood sitting heparin which is also being done and corticosteroids of which dexamethasone has already proved itself in a drug trial that should be our main focus the remdesivir works in the first and second stage of the infection not when the patient turns serious because that's a different phenomena that comes up the body's immune system itself attacking the body or the clotting phenomena which has also been seen so at that stage you really into other kinds of treatment that is being prescribed early stages remdesivir has some effect modest effect at the same time it should be made widely available but unfortunately Garpenter India has kept absolutely mum what it intends to do about making remdesivir available to the people it in fact seems to our belief that if it closes its eyes the problem will somehow go away remdesivir is not available as you know Gilead has sold its stock for extreme months to the United States it is in discussions with Indian companies but since it had itself hoarded all the raw materials how it can be quickly manufactured in the rest of the world we have no idea neither have we from the government heard anything about this so it does seem the government of India at the moment wants to follow the principle that Trump followed Trump was following that the central government is not responsible for all of this it's only the states which are responsible and their task is to concentrate on external issues banning apps tick tock for example and other such distractions at the moment rather than focus of the pandemic and seriously negotiate how we can have continuing peace of the borders fortunately we do seem to be moving at least in that direction of peace withdrawals from the borders from disputed territories the tension doesn't take place right now and address the most burning question but it does seem either on the medical front or on the simple front of what needs to be done and don't forget the central government has a disaster management act it is aggregated to itself all the rights of to intervene wherever and however it wants but a lot of this now is being expended say against Vinod Dua the notice was did talk about even the disaster management act so we seem to be seeing the use of this these powers in different ways and don't forget also that while the police powers are exercised it has consequences as we saw the two deaths that took place in Tutikori the police station the case of two victims Jai Raj and Vinod yes they in fact were charged with having kept a shop open 15 minutes more than the so-called pandemic or epidemic curfew so this is the consequence of also arming yourself with all these draconian powers but then not using it for the benefit of the people but to use it essentially as a law-and-order instrument and that's a very blunt instrument for public health disaster management of public health disaster but we don't have a connected note we saw that bank UP went into a 55-hour lockdown towards the end of last week Bangalore is going into another one tomorrow so are we also looking at a phase where key regions will keep continuously doing the cycles well you know lockdown as we have always said is a very blunt instrument it works only to buy you some time and to gear yourself up but lockdown is not for the purpose of stopping the epidemic just by itself because people are infected and you do not take them out of the general population they will continue to infect the families or at least some people they come in touch with so it's a very very clear issue that if you do not identify these people don't stigmatize them make it possible for them to come and be tested and if they are tested or you do test them then make it easy for them to be taken out of the population of providing facilities where they don't dread the idea of going and getting themselves locked up as if they're in jail so if you don't stigmatize this make it possible for them to go into places where if they're not serious they'll recover in five to six days and go back when they are free of not in of the infection not infecting others they reach that stage so that will take care of actually the community spread we are in community spread there's no point in denying it if you have so thousands of people getting infected without knowing where the infection is coming from to say you're not in community spread is just bogus so this is the next step you have to take and you have to be clear that when the numbers go up your hospitals are going to be stressed particularly the intensive care hospitals part of the hospital is going to be stressed you must have intensive care facility in the hospitals and also a lot of the hospitals seem to treat that you know some wards are COVID war some are a war the general war now we know that the air-condition ventilation system itself can actually transmit the aerosol for one war to another so unless these systems are disconnected what is likely to happen is that you get a sudden large number of cases that will go up in the hospital itself and of course the hospital employees in non-COVID wards are also going to get affected as well as the patients so hospitals in fact can become the secondary spots of infection how do you order the hospital system in a way that this does not happen that hospitals can take care of the serious cases and that that's how you keep your death figures low it will not keep the infection low but it'll keep your death figures low and that's the objective of this this space itself itself that you don't have too many deaths and though otherwise you know you would be the same soup as the United States where they're running out of now I think in Houston there are 40 ISUs are completely full now that's because the numbers have overtaken the capacity of the hospitals and this one city in US we are talking about but we are also seeing some of these things happening in India so how to strengthen that hospital system after you take care of the others is really the issue so at the same time what you say what else that we need to do of course you also have to give the rest of the people food and other support so that's also the task of the government so I'm really at the moment in this discussion focusing more on the public health aspect of it but let's understand that's only one part of it because not having food not having income not having education the children at home all of these are also problems but if you talk about just the public health issue because we don't control the pandemic if we don't control the epidemic let's not think that we care the economy by itself will come back because people and this is the example of Sweden Sweden did not have a lockdowns as you know they say we will develop herd immunity the figures in Sweden apart from the figures of death being much higher infections being much higher and so on the important part is the Swedish economy has also contracted they just couldn't keep it open either because people will take calls themselves even if the government doesn't so all of this means that the economy can only be addressed when you have controlled the epidemic the belief that this government also the guard the belief that Trump shares what Sweden shared that pandemic and economy are two different things you can somehow separate the two and open the economy the economy will start running even if their infections even if some people die it doesn't matter this whole belief is wrong and as I said Sweden which started with this belief is the clearest the clearest example it's in fact the drop in the production figures the GDP figures of Sweden are as precipitate as that of its Canadian neighbours who actually instituted lockdowns so lockdowns by themselves are only a palliative they are not the one destroying the economy as people are trying to say it's really the pandemic that needs to be controlled if you want normal life to come back and if you want normal economic activities to start thank you so much for being our next segment is from the world of sport the first test match post the pandemic concluded this week with the West Indies beating England but what stood out was an eloquent and powerful statement by West Indies legend Michael holding who was also commentator on the first day where he talked about racism and the importance of education and combating it and building a better society we talked to news clicks Leslie Xavier on this issue thank you Leslie for joining us so the first test match after the COVID-19 pandemic pandemic continues of course but amid the lockdown the first test match got over West Indies defeated England and despite a heartening result in some senses also to see that they also do to the fact that match actually happened but we do know that one of the aspects which got the most amount of attention was on the first day Michael holdings very impassioned speech about racism about fighting against it about the need for education itself as a key tool in combating racism and discrimination so you first want to talk a bit about the match itself the context in which it is held and holding speech that so yeah it's great it was a great West Indies with three overall performance was great and it considering the fact that they came in under strict quarantine rules and completely isolated themselves strain and so and the kind of strain that it takes on on the psyche as well as physical side as well and still they came out and performed away from home and did well to win it's commendable but like I said like you said I mean at the start the talking point of this entire test match besides the fact that it's the restart of cricket was of course the larger moment that is happening across the world black lives matter and so the players started off the match by taking a knee and also the right through both sides the English board as well as the West Indies cricket board both of them have been very open as to where they stand as a organization in this in this moment they were completely for people to stand up against it they allowed the players to completely express its own the jerseys they had logos displaying black lives matter they are West Indies players came out with the one black gloves in their hand which is a tribute to the 1968 Olympics podium protest that American athletes Tommy Smith had done so before that before the match even started there was a rain delay and that's when Michael came on on air and spoke very passionately very emotionally he almost was on tears about racism and about the things that he has faced he has not faced and about the regrets that he have of not having stood up when when things were happening around him just because he was an athlete he was he was known and he thought that this doesn't directly impact us but over the years he he said that all the atrocities that he keeps seeing around including the latest George Floyd's death which has been the triggering point for the mass movement and he is just it has just built up and it just he says that he can't be mute anymore he can't stand aside and say it doesn't directly affect me and to his speech he seemed to convey also the fact that we shouldn't be waiting that much years to react it's now it's the time has to start from now and the key point that he mentioned was education being key incidentally again I'm just getting into that that part the same thing applies on a different context in the Indian Indian Indian system of education because it's it's it's as we know over the over the years with the kind of political influence that has that has affected the education sector the curriculum the syllabus planning everything it has it has been diluted the larger picture of complete and full education that we had probably at some point in our history is is is getting lost and so when holding was speaking in England the same day over in India the CBSC made its move which is which which created a lot of uproar by cancelling so interesting they cancel and they cancel things like democracy secularism right right to food things like that so it's very clear where it comes from it's very clear what the agenda is and here they're across the world one great cricketer is talking about racism and how systematic education presenting both sides of the of the I mean the complete picture so to speak of history of everything of quality everything that happens around the world and then then empowering the generations to come with the knowledge to to lead a I mean non-discriminative egalitarian society and over in India which is the biggest democracy in the world I mean still I would like to believe but things are happening far from far from far from that such a system so that's that's unfortunate and that's sad so the other key question of course is that there's a larger question the education system and then there's also the question of the kind of role sports plays in education so of course we've we've all grown up playing sports in various ways right now it's far more professional in some senses whereas maybe a couple of decades ago it is a much more amateur thing and there is there is a common understanding that sports is very essential for education but it's still a very weak kind of principle so could you talk a bit about that aspect also especially in the context of what holding spoke about and how that kind of can even get channelized a bit so I would again go back to holding to start getting to this conversation and then address both the sides the amateur side the education side of sport in factory sites and the professional side of course so holding mentioned when he was asked at a later conversation on Sky Sports news when when the news anchor discussed with him about his speech earlier and many aspects of what made him say so holding mentioned he was asked whether he faced racism on the cricket field as a player so he was very clear that from the creating fraternity from the players he never faced any racism of course sledging things like that like for instance holding is best I mean one of his most famous point in his career is the global series they call it when the southern I mean during the England tour the English captain had mentioned that I would make the West Indians global and then we all know who growled eventually and so but but these are I mean beyond that beyond this obvious when digging at each other they call it sledging in cricket parlance he has not faced any serious racism as at all he said and he said that he wouldn't have stood for it but being on the field being on the sidelines being on the boundary lines the amount of stuff that he has faced abusive languages racist slurs he said you can't imagine so that is from there I would like to bring the role of sport because your sport brings brings up these sports persons to a certain system right from the grassroots right from the school days where they start playing the game with friends in the classroom so sport becomes part of that education system over there so from there it imbibe certain values which which is something that holding was believing in that over time with the right education the society will reach a point where you are judged by merit and not by the color of your skin or your race or your religion so the sport teaches that because sport is purely merit based I mean in practice of course we know there is nepotism there are things like that but largely sport teaches you that life is merit based sport teaches you equality sport teaches you team work sport teaches you to respect each other's strengths and play with the strengths too for a larger good for the larger goal of the team which translates to working towards the larger good of the society so these are values that sport and beyond competition beyond physical education beyond fitness things like that these are the values that get imbibe it sport becomes part of a larger curriculum of primary and secondary education in the country sadly if you look at the education system and I can talk about this being an insider because I was part of the school sport system as a competitor I was part of the school sport system as an organizer of sport because I had a small teaching sting though my subject was science I because of my sports background I used to invariably get involved in organizing sport so in in school sport in in the educational scenario of sport in India it largely revolves around the competition system only so and so it's not a universal idea of sport for everyone it is for those few students who are sports persons who are into sport and they would be allowed the luxury of it's a luxury but but I would say it's a necessity because the kind of larger goals that it larger values that it imbibe into into into the psyche of the students it's immense and this is for I spoke just about the societal part of it but on a personal front also the kind of influences that playing is forward to and interacting with with with tears introduces into the into the mind into the psyche into the personality of the person it's well studied and we all know what it is and getting into again the other aspect of it this the non-education part of it sport as the professional establishment around sport around the playing field there is a lot of instances of inequality and racism happening because it's a cut-out world and also where I mentioned holding facing racist slurs from the fans and all that so similar thing happens across the world across sport football the football cricket rugby any any sport for that matter discrimination is there but not necessarily within the system but around the system and so recently we at Muscleet also published a report which which cited a study saying how commentary for instance football commentary is as a lot of subtle racism within it so and it's it's it's racial stereotyping where you mention some certain players of certain ethnicities instance black players have I mean physicality or they are prone to fouling the things like that they're prone to cheat so the same thing that translates where when a black person walks into a shopping mall and you is continuously monitored because they think that he might be stealing the same thing applies here because referees look at players of certain ethnicity with without saying that yeah he is likely to comment so so the kind of racial stereotyping on all these are part of sport either so sport isn't perfect that's what I'm trying to say here but sport at a at a ground level at the purest of form where all these professional strappings and competition scenarios and the gains and the the economic impacts and all these things are taken out when sport is played purely as a as a exertion for fun and for for for camaraderie and for part of the education school and all that it's it's it's it's as perfect as you can imagine it it should be thank you so much for talking to us that's all your time for today we'll be back tomorrow with major news developments from the country until then keep watching news click