Life In The Time Of Corona

As COVID-19 claims its first victims here, India is fighting back to arrest the spread of the deadly virus with public awareness campaigns, social distancing measures, hygiene protocols and more. For now, the battered economy is on the back-burner

- Sonali Acharjee And M.G. Arun

If I keep washing my hands, China virus can be kept away.” Seven-year-old Ankit Sehgal, who studies in a Delhi school, has learned this through public service announcements on television. He is not complaining that his school is shut; his parents have given him a smartphone to keep him occupied at home. The phone even has a ‘hand wash reminder’ app which sends hourly notifications—‘Time to wash your hands’. Ankit does so diligently, singing Happy Birthday twice to ensure he has washed his skin clean of the Novel Coronavirus. On weekends, his parents take him for a treat to a Starbucks where he loves having his temperature checked by the thermal scanner. For Ankit, life in the time of coronavirus is “normal, but you have to keep your hands clean”. For the rest of the world, it is not that simple.

Lives are being lost, and lives are being turned upside down. From a few stray cases in February, India has seen a sharp spike in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19—151 as on March 18—while three people among them have succumbed to complications arising out of the disease. To prevent community transmission of the virus, India has gone into a shutdown, the likes of which the country has not seen in living memory. The arrival of international travellers from 33 European countries, including Turkey, has been banned, non-essential domestic travel stands drastically curtailed, businesses have come to a standstill, companies have asked employees to work from home, schools are shut, mall and multiplexes deserted and events and marriages are being rescheduled.

Ask Ashish Bohra, a 27-year-old wedding planner, who had to cancel his own wedding in Bahrain last week. He had invited 350 guests and 100 performing artists, including Kailash Kher. “All our plans were crushed in a single day,” he says.