India coronavirus dispatch: Migrant workers need housing security

Here is a selection of articles from across Indian publications on Covid-19. From India’s testing conundrum, to financing the Covid-19 response, and the non-respiratory symptoms of the disease – read these and more in today’s India digest.

Citizens Under Lockdown

Job loss, rent and exodus — Covid-19 crisis tells us migrants need housing security: Residential vulnerability is at the centre of the coronavirus crisis. How can one stay at home if they do not have one, or if their house is not big enough to accommodate all the members of the family? Read here to understand the way forward.

Covid-19 lockdown is the best time to quit tobacco: The temporary ban on the sale of tobacco products during the ongoing lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19 is an opportunity to reduce tobacco consumption in India, the world’s second-biggest consumer, experts say. Read here on why users will find it easier to quit when forced to go without tobacco for over six weeks and isolated from social circles where tobacco use is common.

Long Reads

India's Covid-19 testing conundrum – why the govt and its critics are both right: On the one hand, the Indian government claims that there are no problems with the testing process. The evidence, according to the government, is the low test positivity rate (ratio of positives to total persons tested) for India. On the other hand, critics point to the low testing rate (ratio of total persons tested to the total population) as evidence of serious problems in India’s Covid-19 testing process. Using data from the Our World in Data website, this piece finds that both claims — of the government and critics — are correct.

Opinion

Covid-19 crisis calls for universal delivery of food and cash transfers by the state: In these difficult times, it is essential for the state to directly provide the basic means of survival to anyone who needs it. This must be in both cash and kind. Food access is the most important, but because of the closure of economic activity and the absence of any livelihood opportunity, this must be combined with cash transfers to tide over this period and the immediate aftermath. Read more here.

Financing the Covid-19 response – challenges and choices: The Covid-19 pandemic has cast a long shadow of uncertainty. It is not clear how long it will take to restore normalcy and revive the economic environment. The only things clear at this juncture are that the damage to the economy is enormous and recovery prolonged. Read here on why government spending in saving lives and livelihoods, and reviving the economy, needs to be voluminous; and why financing it would pose stiff challenges.

Protecting the poor from becoming poorer: Recent government actions in the direction of preventing the poor from becoming poorer are helpful, but they are focused on the short term. As such, governments need to take a long-term view of mitigating the many economic and human capital effects of Covid-19 and its control measures. To prevent human capital deprivation in the future, both long- and short-term relief measures will need to target specific populations like those of pregnant women and young children. Read more here.

Democracy should extend to how we build our technologies as well: The fight against Covid-19 has to be fought on multiple fronts. Read here on why empowering people, inculcating rationality, and democratising knowledge are just as critical as hospitals and medicines.

Managing Covid-19

India has the resources to care for its embattled migrant workers – but does it have the will? If Indian students, tourists and pilgrims stranded overseas want to return home, so do labourers in big cities. The 2005 floods in Mumbai resulted in thousands of workers leaving the city. In 1994, when plague broke out in the industrial city of Surat, hundreds of thousands fled. The phenomenon of reverse migration during a crisis is not new. Read more here.

Kerala to test 3,000 asymptomatic persons daily in new testing strategy: In a move to check for community spread of Covid-19, Kerala has begun random testing of asymptomatic persons. The state has formulated a new testing plan to find “any undetected Covid-19 positivity among the general population of Kerala”. Read here on how the state plans to test 3,000 samples from the general population on a daily basis.

What are the concerns around the Aarogya Setu app? With no legislation clearly spelling out how the online privacy of Indians is to be protected, Aarogya Setu users have little choice but to accept the privacy policy provided by the government. The policy goes into some detail on where and how long the data will be retained, but it leaves vague the language around who will have access to it. Read more here.

Understanding Covid-19

Where does COVID-19 virus first strike? Study pinpoints two cell types in nose: A new study has identified the specific cells where the mechanism of entry most likely comes into play when the virus begins its attack. Read more here.

Why pathogens travel in search of a host: What is the link between the virus causing Covid-19 and bats, pangolins and other wild species? Why are zoonotic diseases on the rise? Read more here.

Stroke, confusion, dizziness – Covid-19 impacts brain in some cases: Recovered Covid-19 patients from various parts of the world have shared their experience dealing with the virus and have spoken about such non-respiratory and early neurological symptoms. One small subset of people who experienced strokes or anosmia and ageusia (loss of smell and taste, respectively), did not show any other respiratory symptoms. Read more here.