There is, however, now the beginning of a slight flattening of the curve, but this has come after weeks, during which the country paid its last respects to thousands of their countrymen. At last count, the number of those dead in Italy from the Coronavirus pandemic was over 14,000, and still rising. What can be learnt from this country’s experience with the virus is that putting restrictions on people’s movements does help in limiting the spread of the virus. Italy put in these restrictions late, but after the lockdown in the country, the rise is beginning to slow down, so much so that Spain, which was behind Italy in cases, has now crossed the Italian total, to be second after USA.
Could the devastation that has occurred in Italy have been substantially reduced had the country acted early and shutdown services? There are reasons to believe that the number of cases and deaths in that country could have been less. Italy continued normal life in the early days after the virus was detected to have entered the country. It took tough steps when the number had already crossed the four-figure mark. Even then, what it did was close down only areas that were hotpsots, while other regions continued to carry on their normal life. It was only later that the entire country went into a lockdown. By then it was too late and the virus had spread across the nation.
It is a tragic situation in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and cases of this virus are also rising in most other European countries. Yet, there are countries that have managed to slow down the impact, and that has mainly been possible by restrictions imposed on the movement of people. The countries that are facing the worst of the pandemic are those that were slow in this. For any government, imposing a lockdown is not an easy decision to take, but having learnt from other countries, more nations have gone ahead and restricted the movements of their people. It is those that delayed in doing this, that are today most affected.
In contrast to some of the European countries, India has acted early in imposing the lockdown across the country, and though the cases are increasing on a daily basis, there is, based on experience of other countries, reason to believe that the shutdown will have a positive effect and slow down the spread of the virus. There are hypothesis that India should have acted even earlier, stopping international flights from affected countries. This could have helped control the spread. Take the case of Goa, where of the seven confirmed cases, six arrived in the State from abroad, and the only local resident to have got infected was a close relative of one of those who had tested positive. There has been no community spread in the State.
The experiences from Europe have led many other countries to define their response to the pandemic in such manner that it will help control the multiplicatiion of the virus. This has been an unparalleled situation from which there have been many lessons to be learnt. There have been painful decisions taken, but that is not the end. If the disaster in Italy has alerted the world to the extent of the threat of the virus, the country has also displayed rare resilience of the countrymen who locked themselves in, but also kept their spirits high. The video clips of the spontaneous singing from the balconies by the Italians showed clearly just how they were standing in solidarity with the rest of their countrymen.
