Mamata leads from the front war against corona; West Bengal CM manages crisis amongst people

Tom Landry is not a familiar name in India. He was not a great politician either. He was an American football player. But what he said once is a quotable quote: “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you are in control, they are in control.” Judging by this criterion, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is a leader par excellence.

While the Prime Minister, remembering the old English proverb “An Englishman’s home is his castle”, retreated into his Lok Kalyan Marg residence, confident that the coronavirus will not be able to penetrate the several rings of security cordon around him, Mamata Banerjee is cocking a snook at coronavirus and daily attending her office at Nabanna, the State Secretariat. She is talking face-to-face with her officers, not contacting them through video-conferencing.

She is freely visiting government and private hospitals to see the state of affairs at first hand. She is visiting shops, bazaars, vegetable markets and places where conservancy workers are at work. She has doubled the insurance cover from five to ten lakh rupees for doctors, nurses, paramedics both in government and private hospitals. Before that she announced the creating of a Rs. 200 crore fund to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

The State BJP leaders are not happy. They are fretting and fuming that instead of staying at home, Mamata is freely moving about and exposing herself to corona infection. This is unpardonable on the part of the chief minister. They expected her to remain cocooned at her Kalighat residence so that they could go about telling people that at the time of a crisis the Chief Minister is nowhere to be seen. The CPI-M has chimed in with the BJP. The party has accused Mamata of violating the lockdown and helping spread infection. Mamata has written a different script for herself which the BJP and the CPI-M find galling. She has issued strict instructions to all hospitals, whether public or private, asking them not to refuse admission to any corona patient.

But confusion still reigns about the corona infection and the possible government strategy to meet it. Several eminent physicians in their interviews to TV channels, said there should be another 49 days’ lockdown as soon as the 22-day lockdown imposed by Modi ends In other words, they want an unbroken lockdown for the whole country for 70 days or two months and ten day at a stretch. They claim this will completely eradicate the coronavirus. The claim remains unverified. It can be verified only if actually there is a 70-day lockdown.

But those who have advanced such novel ideas of tackling with the coronavirus have not said a single word about what will happen to our national economy if production remains totally stopped in all sectors for 70 days in a country of 1,300 million people. The whole idea seems absurd, unrealistic and unimplementable. It is a good thing that the Prasar Bharati has categorically denied that the Government has any such plan of forcing people into total idleness for another 49 days after the present 21-day lockdown ends.

The stated objective of the lockdown was three-fold.. First, to prevent people from going out of their homes and mixing with other people. This has failed. People, even corona-affected people, are going out and mixing freely. It is difficult to keep a check on the people they are meeting, still more difficult to ascertain who these other people they came in contact with have mixed and what number of people they have mixed with. The second objective was to prevent the huge gatherings of people. TV channels are showing round the clock thousands of people gathered around railway stations and bus termini, trying to get back home. Also, in bazaars and market places. How many among them have or have not been affected by the corona virus, nobody knows. The third objective, the combined effect of the first two, was to bring down the number of infected people. All three have failed.

Yet another confusion has been created in another quarter. The Centre for Disease Dyanmics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), centred in New Delhi, published a report which it said had been prepared in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University of the US. The report claimed that India was likely to see between 12.5 crore and 24 crore people infected with corona virus. In the “best case scenario” with decreased virulence, the peak will be around mid-June, while in the worst case scenario the where government intervention like rate of testing and social distancing fails, the worst part will arrive around April 25. From August, the effect of the disease will taper off.

The report naturally caused an alarm in the medical and scientific communities. Many refused to give credence to it. On March 27, the Johns Hokpkins University publicly “dissociated” itself from the report. “Dissociation” implies initial association. The JHU has not explained why it chose to be associated with the CDDEP and what led to its dissociation later. Even the denial with the project was couched in a strange language: “The use of our logo (in the report) was not authorized in this case and JHU is engaging with CDDEP on it.” If the JHU is “engaging” with the CDDEP, how can it deny its role in the report co-authored by it with the CDDEP? Such a denial only makes confusion worse confounded.

Meanwhile, the undeniable fact is that corona virus cases are rapidly on the rise, with States reporting ever new cases every day. Fortunately, India still remains at the bottom of the list as far as total number of corona cases and deaths are concerned. Fortunately also, the Prasar Bharati, the official publicity wing of the Government, has categorically denied that the Centre has any intention of extending the lockdown after 21 days. The people will breathe more easily.

Let us face the plain fact. It will take another eighteen to twenty-four months for an anti-corona virus vaccine to be available. First it has to be made, then put to controlled clinical trials and then, if everything goes right, commercial production of the vaccine will begin. It is a lengthy process and many legal requirements will have to be fulfilled. Till then many more will die. We cannot prevent these deaths. This is the stark reality.