Crossing another milestone
Three months after our fight against COVID-19 kicked into high gear on March 25, 2020, India is approaching yet another milestone in its efforts to stop the spread of the contagion. As we cross the 90 lakh tests conducted mark and swiftly approach the one crore mark, there is little time to sit and appreciate how far we have come. When we started, we had just one lab in the country — the National Institute of Virology that was capable of conducting tests for the virus, now we have 1,065 facilities with 768 government sector labs and 297 private labs with a testing capacity of over 3 lakh samples per day. ICMR has credited this increase to the Government steadily removing roadblocks to widespread testing, the latest one being the removal of the requirement of getting a prescription from a government doctor in order to get tests done. With the Government announcement that patients can now get a COVID-19 test conducted on the prescription of any registered and certified doctor, the numbers of tests being conducted is expected to surge greatly.
After a passive testing policy proved detrimental to the efforts of containing the spread, India adopted the 'Test, Trace and Treat' strategy. This strategy, in tandem with the demarcation of infection zones, has allowed for a way to limit the spread while also allowing most facets of daily life to return to some semblance of normalcy.
Many states have declared an intent to screen every single citizen of their state in a door to door format. This is different from the previous method of conducting surveys as health officials will be the ones making the rounds. Any suspicious cases will then prompt the collection of samples for testing. Delhi has additionally announced that it will conduct door to door testing of every person living in containment zones. It was also announced that the city authorities are also conducting antibody tests to further the accuracy of its tracing methods. Delhi has also made efforts to conduct more than 2,000 rapid antigen tests everyday, which give results in 30 minutes. Increasing the number of rapid antigen tests is vital, in addition to regular testing as it enables early hospitalisation and reduces the risk of severe symptoms and fatalities. More recently, UP authorities have also expressed their intent for carrying out a 'special door to door survey' with the target of collecting 4,000 samples for testing every day across six districts including Gautam Budh Nagar.
We have also managed to make steady gains in our recovery rates across the nation with the national recovery rate crossing 60 per cent, which is well above the global average. Furthermore, even as 20,903 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours on July 3, the number of recoveries in the same time period was a record 20,032. These are early but definitely encouraging signs that India as a nation may be slowly but steadily moving towards the much-awaited flattening stage.
As always, such efforts help in the containment of spread, but the only real way out of this situation is the building up of herd immunity or a vaccine. Herd immunity has largely been considered as an unrealistic prospect with a collateral cost that crosses over into unacceptable margins. Vaccines have always been our hope with regards to truly bringing the world back to normal. While vaccine development is a global effort, having domestically researched and produced vaccine options is indeed a desirable outcome at this juncture. As such, the announcement that Cadila Healthcare Ltd's domestically made vaccine, Covaxin is has been approved for human trials starting from August is encouraging. If successful, India, which is the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, has the necessary infrastructure to gain the first semblance of even footing against this oppressive pandemic.
As India records ever-increasing caseloads every day, we can consider this milestone a reminder of how far we have come. It is also a marker to show how far we must go. We need more. More of everything, of tests, of PPEs, of beds, of ventilators. Our fight is still in its early stages, but for now, we can pause for a bit and pat our backs.
