New York COVID Lessons Can Help India’s Pandemic Control
Srinivasa K. Rao, Ph.D. & Kartik Dasika M.S.
Testing, Tracing & Vaccination Awareness played a key role in curbing Covid-19 cases in New York.
India can do it with 2% of its Health care industry income support.
Man has been winning the survival war between man and Nature. Corona Virus (Sars Cov-2) is the latest battle in that war! The present pandemic is the 20th one that man based so far, from the recorded history. From this recorded history, we get the confidence to say humans will overcome!
Present news reporting in May 2021 from India about the ongoing pandemic is alarming and often biased, inflated, lacks balance, and spreading misunderstanding. I request all of you to review the data, monitor, understand and spread the information to generate well-informed confidence in people to fight the pandemic. We all, whichever country we may be in, have to take this as our serious responsibility!
Here is the data as it is available from Ourworld In Data website.
India’s Covid deaths per million population (2.90) is more than the USA (1.84) but very less than Brazil's (9.38).
The COVID death rate per 100 confirmed positive cases for India is lower (1.09%) than the USA (1.78%) and Brazil’s (2.78%)
Covid -19 rate of spread can be estimated from its reproduction rate. The reproduction rate represents the average number of new infections caused by a single infected individual. If the rate is greater than 1, the infection can
spread in the population. If it is below 1, the number of cases occurring in the population will gradually decrease to zero.
The reproduction rate in India is higher ( 1.13) than in Brazil (1.01) and the USA ( 0.82).
It’s well-known that the virus can not survive an extended period of time outside the human body. It spreads from an infected person is known fairly well. Therefore the following measures can stop the virus. We will win over the virus if ALL of us follow this simple rule.
Wearing masks, personal hygiene, and social distance measures prevent the virus from spreading from the infected to others.
This action, along with the Test & Trace program, is very effective. It is the need the hour everywhere to stop the virus.
New York City has been implementing this program since August 2020. They entrusted the awareness campaign to several community-based Organizations (CBO) with a total budget of 10 Million. The data show that they have reached 80,000 people and given out more than 500,000 masks every week since August 2020.
In New York, The result can be seen in the curve's flattening attained in the following months. The reduction of deaths from 1,000 at the peak to the present 41 deaths per day can be attributed to T2 awareness followed by vaccination mainly.
We, India Home, are one of the CBO’s worked in the T2 awareness campaign.
India’s present situation can be compared to New York City’s in April 2020.
A combination of T2 awareness and vaccination can stop the virus, as seen from the New York experience.
As we are implementing the T2 awareness program for the past 10 months, the New York City Departmnetment of health invited us for a meeting to discuss possibilities to help India and Brazil’s efforts to stop the virus.
The lessons learned from New York, the first epicenter of the pandemic outside China where the origin occurred, are useful to India.
How to fund the Test, Trace, and Vaccine awareness program in India?
New York City's total budget for the T2 programs is $19 million for the two years as announced in the Request for proposals. The program reached some 35% of people who needed it. Therefore the cost person for the awareness program stands at $6.25. If we have to reach 35% of the Indian population using the same dollar amount as in the USA is $3.12 Billion. In addition, to give the corona vaccine for free for those who can not afford it, another $3 Billion are needed approximately. The business that benefits from medicines, vaccines, and health care in India is estimated to have a $341.43 Billion market size. So the money needed for Test, Trace & Vaccination for Indians to win the war against corona is approximately 2% of the annual revenue received by the health-based business.
Therefore, implementing T2 and vaccine awareness programs in India is less than 2% of the total Indian Pharma, Vaccines, and Health Care market size.
Srinivasa K. Rao, Ph.D. | New York | Srao123@gmail.com
