How To Handle A Pandemic

The Kerala government has been successful in putting the public health sector back on the rails

Every year after the Union Budget, newspapers carry articles critiquing the abysmal allocation for the health sector. As the COVID-19 threat looms, doctors, healthcare professionals and state institutions have been regularly issuing guidelines on the precautions to be taken. However, the ubiquitous fault lines of India’s public healthcare infrastructure are being laid bare as we combat our latest adversary. In his book, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, veteran journalist P. Sainath poignantly details what it looks like to be a poor family that relies on government hospitals. He remarks how the 1994 plague in India got unprecedented media attention because unlike several other diseases, it couldn’t be restricted to rural areas and urban slums. The disease-causing bacteria had the audacity to enter elite spaces; in Sainath’s words, “Worse still, they (the bacteria) can board aircraft and fly club class to New York. Too many of the beautiful people felt threatened.” COVID-19, although a lot less dangerous than the plague, was brought to India by infected passengers flying in from affected nations. This argument is not to suggest that either of these diseases are to be taken lightly, but rather to shed light on how India responds differently to health requirements based on the social and class locations of those affected.