Abstract
Occurrence of pandemics is not new to the world. In the world, four pandemics have occurred recently. They are: Spanish flu (1918), Asian flu (1957), Hong Kong flu (1968), and Swine flu (2009). The origin of three of the four pandemics, apart from the “Black Death” that occurred in 1347 is China. The present Covid-19 virus has also emerged from China. It threatens all Homo sapiens as it is spreading at a very high speed. It spread to all countries of the world within three months. In India, though deaths are not too much high, the number of infected persons is high. To contain its spread, lockdown was announced on the 25th of March 2020. During the lockdown, every engine of growth has stopped firing.
Health Impact: In India, the first case was reported from Kerala in January 2020. After that, it spread quickly and covered all the States of India. As of 8:00 pm on July 9, Covid-19 virus infection is 767,296, the third place at the global level immediately after the US and Brazil and the total number of deaths is 21,129. The test positivity rate increased from 4.6% in mid-March 2020 to 6.73% as on July 6, 2020 [3]. India’s rise in infected cases is the third fastest at the global level [4] though its recovery rate is as high as 62.09% and the death rate is as low as 2.75% (globally the respective rates are 58.19% and 4.53%). In India, there is paucity of healthcare facilities. Governments, both the central and States, are taking various efforts to enhance healthcare facilities. However, the facilities available are not enough to meet the sudden surge in demand. Hence, common people suffer like anything; in some cities, people are running from pillar to post for getting treatment. In private hospitals, the treatment cost is very high. Though some State governments announced caps for both testing and treatment, most of the private hospitals charge an exorbitant rate. It forced most of the poor and the marginalized to knock the door of government hospitals, where there is scarcity of beds and basic facilities such as water and sanitation [5].
Economic Impact: To control the spread of Covid-19 virus, the Indian government announced one by one four lockdowns (5th and 6th are not taken into account) from the 25th of March to 31st May 2020. Due to the lockdown, the entire economic activity was brought to halt all of a sudden. While during the lockdown, every engine of growth has stopped firing. At the beginning, in some states, even the movement of people was completely stopped. Trillion rupees worth of agricultural goods were perished. By the implementation of the lockdown, totally 7.4 lakh tonnes of vegetables belonging to roadside vendors were destroyed and the livelihood of nearly 3 million persons was abolished. After a few days, certain essential activities such as agriculture were exempted from lockdown. Laborers are concerned during the lockdown, they had no works to do and there was no money in their pockets. People like casual and migrant laborers are the worst affected.
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