COVID-19, a global pandemic as declared by the WHO, has been a severe cause of concern for most part of the world for past few months. Specially, its social and economic impact has been heart wrenching. The tension on one hand is escalating globally with rising number of deaths and patients with infection.Spreading from its base epicentre Wuhan in China, COVID-19 has gone on to impact extensively some of the much advance nations in terms of public healthcare. A broader analysis of COVID-19 impact on some of the major developed nations like USA, UK, France, Germany and Italy makes many speculate that a densely populated developing nation like India is still under reporting the actual number of cases with COVID- 19 infection. Though around the world trends of confirmed cases started emerging from early December. India on the contrary reported its first case on 30th January 2020. Indian government though, in the early weeks of March,took certain stringent measures to curb the spread of virus but there are still certain questions that are emerging in terms of preparedness of government to tackle with deadly impact of COVID-19 medically, socially and economically. Taking clues from some of the key nations like South Korea and Singapore, who have been successful in bringing down the impact of COVID- 19 by complete lockdown, India has been observing a nationwide lockdown of more than a month. The measure is suggested to break the chain of transmission but going by some credible reports that government is faced with many challenges given the size and population of the country.The chaos that has been created amongst the public for hoarding daily essential goods, Migrant workers and daily wage workers are left without any job and basic facility in terms of transportation to travel back home, So far government has taken certain emergency measures to deal with these problems that were caused due to the sudden announcement of lockdown.
Government also announced a relief package of 1,70,000 crores to deal with economic impact of COVID-19 on organized and unorganized sectors. One of the appreciable measures escalated at the governance level is the spread of awareness about the COVID-19 virus and clearing of rumour spread air pertaining to infection. But, India will have to prepare itself to deal with the tougher times ahead as even IMF chief has recently announced that the world economy has entered phase of recession, much worse in scale as compared to 2009 recession.Many Corporate giants and industrialist like Anand Mahindra, Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani have come forward to help government in providing monitory aid and building make shift hospitals, testing centres and medical equipment like ventilators, N-95 Masks and proper medical gear for doctors treating COVID-19 patients. Currently the government is putting all its focus on enabling the healthcare facilities in India for treating and testing rising number of COVID-19 cases. The only means that can favourably help Indian government in coping with the impact of pandemic is a structured and systemic planning that shall go alongside the nationwide lockdown. In words of renowned journalist Shekhar Gupta ‘India has all the potential to come out of a pandemic situation like the one right now. Our history of dealing with epidemics like smallpox and polio goes prove that India does have a vital capacity of dealing with such difficult times’.