COVID-19 Pandemic Preparedness and Control Measures by India: The Nationwide Lockdown and Impact

The year 2019 was ending and the New Year was also bringing a novel coronovirus to the world. COVID-19, the novel Coronavirus, was notified as a PHEIC and later a Pandemic on the 11th of March, 2020. The Disease has symptoms which are similar to the flu (influenza) or the common cold, which are a lot more common than COVID-19. In more severe cases, an infection can present as pneumonia or acute onset breathlessness with a mode of transmission as direct Contact with respiratory droplets. The Indian government was instrumental in taking action swiftly right from the time when this disease was just an epidemic and yet to be declared as a pandemic. GOI started the measures like screening of interbnational travelers, surveillance through IDSP network, Quarantine for 14 days on entry, suspension of entry of any foreign nationals from PRC, establishment of control room and many more to delay the inevitable outcome and buy time for health department to do the mitigation.GOI had responded to the ‘Test, Track and Treat’ strategy proactively. It included augmentation of lab facilities, involvement of private sector, declaring mask & sanitizers as essential commodity, constitution of RRT’s in states, testing at maximum number of sites followed by contact tracing of positives and furthermore active surveillance in a few parts of country. India learned a lesson from other countries and adopted social vaccine as a definite measure until the vaccine was there. Benefits of non- pharmacological interventions was acknowledged and percolated to the masses through various IEC measures. These all measures were taken before the ‘LOCKDOWN’ was being imposed on 24th of March, 2020. Although lockdown had many anticipated negative consequences but it was the only preventive measure viewed by GOI to curb the surge. The lockdown had no impact on the delivery of essential health services. All Health Facilities, Govt & Private, were instructed to remain functional. All the above-mentioned measures had contributed to serving the prime purpose of early, emphatic containment of SARS-CoV-2 in a country like India, inhabited by 1.3 billion people. Although later there was a surge of cases, but when we infer the same result in comparison to the no of cases would have been there without the lockdown, no action at policymakers would have overwhelmed the health services severely. Hence, the lockdown in India had served the purpose for which it was imposed, thereby had prevented major humanitarian losses on account of COVID-19.