New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday held a conversation with global public healthcare expert Prof Ashish Jha and epidemiologist, Prof Johan Giesecke regarding Coronavirus pandemic.
While speaking over the global impact of this pandemic, Rahul Gandhi said, "I think the balance of power between the US and China will change. People say that 9/11 was a new chapter, I think this is a new book."
When asked about the need of lockdown to fight against this virus, Prof Jha said, "The reason for a lockdown is that you are trying to stop the spread of this virus. Humanity has never seen this virus. This means we are all susceptible. Left unchecked, the virus will grow exponentially."
He further added, "We are entering the age of large pandemics. This is not the last pandemic we are seeing."
However, he also mentioned that lockdown has very substantial economic repercussions and hence the authorities should utilize the time period to prepare strong testing and isolation infrastructure.
On the issue of opening up of nationwide lockdown, Prof Ashish Jha said, "Now, when you open the economy, you have to give people confidence. Economy resides on confidence. If people are scared, they will not engage in economic activity."
Meanwhile, Jha, called for a need to go in for an 'aggressive' COVID-19 testing to create confidence among people. "When the economy is opened post-lockdown, you have to create confidence. There is a need for aggressive testing strategy in high-risk areas," he said. He asserted that COVID-19 is not the last pandemic in the world, adding that "We are entering the age of large pandemics".
While Prof Johan Giesecke warned about this issue in his conversation saying that India will ruin it's economy very quickly if it has a severe lockdown. "I think it's better, skip the lockdown, take care of the old and the frail, and let the other people have the infection. Most people will not even be sick," he added.
Mentioning about the issue of migrant labourers in the country, Rahul Gandhi said that they are frightened about the uncertainty as they are struck at various places due to this lockdown and are unable to get their daily wage. To this Professor Jha agreed and said that the government needs to have a strategy for exiting the lockdown.
While Prof Giesecke concerned over the matter and suggested, "The situation that India is in, with the federal states and everything, I think you should have a soft lockdown. As soft as possible."
Prof Jha pointed out that a testing strategy in the country is necessary as 20% have no symptoms throughout their entire disease, and another 20-25% people state the disease before they have any symptoms.
Speaking on the effect of temperature on coronavirus, Prof Jha said that there are various shreds of evidence suggesting weather makes a difference. He also said that intra-family transmission is a very serious concern in India.
Congress leader asserted that this pandemic will hurt urban centres badly and it will bring people together to the realization that the fight against this virus can't be fought as different religions, or different communities, different castes and different genders.
When Rahul Gandhi asked Prof Jha about the vaccine of this virus, he replied that there will be a COVID-19 vaccine by next year.
"Three vaccines are showing promising results. These are from America, China and Oxford. For now, they all seem promising- may be one of them or all turn out to be effective. India has to prepare a plan on how to avail vaccines for its population," he added.
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