India Coronavirus Dispatch: Focus needs to shift to rural hinterlands

Made-in-India sanitiser pumps soon, work-life balance uprooted for women, and Delhi's testing method raise concerns--news on how the country is coping with the pandemic

Digital learning: The impact of Covid-19 on education has been severe. This is especially true for India, where 70 per cent of children attend government schools. These schools are a major hinderance to nationwide learning. Digital learning, however, seems to offer some hope. There are some benefits to online learning, too: teachers noticed better attendance than they would for physical classrooms. However, these gains are few in rural hinterlands where issues of power supply and internet connectivity are prevalent. This may negatively effect these students when they enter the job market. Covid-19, above all, has highlighted the fact that education is not just learning and encompasses a social place and a social process. Read more here.

RAT testing in Delhi: While Delhi has ramped up its testing rate, a concern among many is the testing technique it has chosen to rely on — Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) — instead of the standard real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test. Data analysed now shows that Delhi is conducting a higher proportion of RAT than the 5 most-hit states. In fact between 30 June and 20 August, the National Capital actually conducted twice as many antigen tests as compared to RT-PCR. With RAT, if a person tests positive then it’s assumed that the individual is infected by the virus. However, if the tests is negative than RT-PCR has to be performed. While Delhi is showing a steady decline in cases, it has happened while RAT was being ramped up. Read more here.

Made-in-India sanitiser pumps: India may soon start large-scale production of sanitiser dispenser pumps which it has been importing from China. The item is crucial in the fight against Covid-19 in the country. The MSME ministry has finalised the design of these pumps. During the pandemic, the domestic demand for these pumps is assumed to be 5 million. In June, even as India’s demand for the pumps was being met, over 90 per cent of them were being imported in China as the country struggled to produce them en masse here. Now, the MSME ministry has mobilised in-house R&D facilities to pave the way for some ‘Made in India’ pumps. Read more here.

Weekend Reads

Behind the scenes in a five-star hotel: Delhi has announced the reopening of 5-star hotels. But the industry is seeing hardly any influx of travellers and its climb out of the current crisis is expected to be a long and harsh one. The first thing that greets guests when walking in to a hotel, is a staffer with a sanitiser spray and a disinfectant for handbags. The lobby now has a hand-sanitising zone where guests are next directed to. This is a followed by a ‘temperature-screening zone’. Hotels have bid farewell to valets and welcome drinks. Every item touched by a guest is put into a UV sterilisation box. Hotel staff are now engaged in aggressive sanitising of contact surfaces like door handles and knobs throughout the day. After a guest checks out, all the sheets and covers in the room are collected by a staffer wearing PPE and put into a bag. The room remains shut for the next 24 hours. Read more here.

Work-Life balance for women: As the pandemic continues to spread, a disproportionate amount of the burden on daily lives has fallen on women. As this story shows, many of them have found their entire routine and work-life balance uprooted by the crisis. In addition to their professional lives, the burden of managing homes and providing care services has increased. Many Indian working women — who are a minority — have also had to make the tough decision of staying away from their families if the situation called for it. As testimonies of several women show, the new normal meant a complete re-orientation for them as the pandemic disturbed the carefully built distinctions between work and personal life. Read more here.

Interview

India’s rural districts accounted for over 50 per cent Covid-19 cases in India in July and August. In this interview, a neuroimmunologist and public health practitioner from Gadchiroli speaks about the state of rural health care infrastructure. He highlights the fact need for distinct coronavirus statistics for the rural areas so that a better strategy for containment can be devised rather than relying on general data. The initial cases in rural areas were mainly on account of migrant workers returning from urban areas but he warns of the disease spreading to per-urban areas and villages closer to highways as the pandemic continues to spread. Even though rural areas have an edge over urban ones thanks to their low population densities, this advantage is offset by poor hygiene standards and a lack of diagnostic and other health infrastructure. Even simple laboratory testing infra is unavailable in these regions. In many districts, these facilities are available only in the district headquarters. Besides, agricultural activities during the monsoon is a unique challenge as far as containment strategies go. Read more here.