Very interesting to see a densely populated country like India deal with Covid and flatten the curve. I'm sure there is massive underreporting of numbers going on, but the curve has certainly flattened, and I hear from friends and family there that life is almost back to normal. My friends in India seem to be going out to eat all the time now, going on holidays, attending sports events, etc. School is not back open yet.
I think they did a few things very well.
- They shut down borders in March 2020 and ensured mandatory quarantine for all incoming travellers regardless of country of origin. Those restrictions are still in place.
- During home quarantine, the local police come and check on you to ensure you are in mandatory quarantine. If you've come from a high risk country (the UK included!) you have to do institutional quarantine, but you get to pick from hotels of different budgets, locations, etc.
- The Covid frontline police, airport staff, healthcare workers and all medical staff wear full PPE at all times.
- All domestic travel (trains, buses, planes, etc) was banned for a few months to ensure there was no 'mixing' within the country.
- Aggressive test and trace to prevent community spread
- Vaccine production on existing infrastructure in-country
Interesting article on what Kerala did:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/dec/22/how-kk-shailaja-and-her-covid-brigade-won-a-victory-against-the-virus
What I found most interesting (with NHS in mind) is that the system coped!
At no point have more than a quarter of its ventilators been occupied, and on 1 December, fewer than one in 10 intensive care beds were filled.