The Hindu Editorial Analysis | 2nd May ’20 | PDF Download

Taiwan’s coronavirus protocol shows how it is done

• Pandemics can spread rapidly around the world because of the ease of international transportation.
• Taiwan’s strategy: Taiwan has been in a state of constant readiness to the threat of emerging infectious disease.
• December 31, 2019: Taiwan began implementing onboard quarantine of direct flights from Wuhan that same day.
• January 2, 2020: Taiwan established a response team for the disease and activated the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
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• Dr. Chen Shih-chung is Minister of Health and Welfare, Taiwan
• The CECC is able to effectively integrate resources from various ministries and invest itself fully in the containment of the epidemic.
• Despite its proximity to China, Taiwan ranked 123 among 183 countries in terms of confirmed cases per million people.
• Taiwan has implemented dynamic plans concerning border quarantine measures, including onboard quarantine, fever screening, health declarations, and a 14-day home quarantine for passengers arriving from nations it has listed under the Level 3 Warning.
• The travel history of individuals is now stored on the National Health Insurance (NHI) card to alert physicians to possible cases and prevent community transmission.
• For those undergoing home quarantine or isolation, the government is working with telecom operators to allow GPS tracking of their locations.
• Taiwan has also increased its laboratory testing capacity, expanded the scope of its surveillance and inspections based on trends of the COVID-19 epidemic, and retested people with higher risk who had already tested negative, including patients with symptoms of severe influenza, community cases with upper respiratory tract infections who were already being monitored, and cluster cases of upper respiratory tract infections, to identify suspected cases and perform treatment in isolation wards.
• Meanwhile, it has designated 50 regional hospitals and medical centres and 167 community hospitals and clinics to create a tiered system for testing.
• Moreover, Taiwan has banned the export of surgical masks since January 24, requisitioned masks, and expanded domestic mask production to more effectively allocate masks.
• Taiwan has fulfilled its responsibilities as a global citizen and abided by the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR 2005) in notifying WHO of confirmed COVID-19 cases.
• Taiwan has long been excluded from WHO due to political considerations.

New World Order

• One hundred years ago, there were no visas and passports for people to travel in Europe, America and their colonies.
• Then came World War I and things changed — national boundaries became rigid.
• Economic stagnation, and recession followed.
• Nationalism turned into ultra-nationalism, leading to another world war.
• After World War II, we created an interconnected and institutionalised global order.
• For the last 65 years, despite several hiccups, the world order has remained largely intact.
• Just as before, countries are turning inwards, becoming authoritarian.
• Economists are writing off globalisation and free trade.
• Niall Ferguson, the American historian from the Hoover Institution, had called them “Chimerica”.
• Coronavirus has shown that Chimerica is just a chimera.
• For the last decade or more, China and America have created an economic relationship model that Ferguson compared with Nichibei, the US-Japan economic bonding prominently in existence until the end of the last century.
• Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think-tank, argues that the number of infections could be as high as 2.9 million instead.
• Whatever China is today, is a product of the long revolution that had culminated in Mao capturing power in 1949.
• The Chinese worldview is guided by three important principles: GDP-ism, China-centrism and Chinese exceptionalism — derived from that revolution.
• Deng Xiaoping had reportedly declared in the 1980s that the most important logic is economic development.
• Chinese economists describe it as “GDPism”.
• The second is China-centrism.
• Mao insisted on independence, autonomy and self-sufficiency.
• “Ode to the motherland”, the famous patriotic song composed by Wang Shen that declares the “grand and beautiful” land of China “over the mountains, across the plains, across the Yangtze and Huang rivers” as the “dear home of ours”, is entrenched in the psyche of every Chinese.
• Third, is Chinese exceptionalism.
• China doesn’t believe in learning from others.
• China should follow its own wisdom for answers to its problems, its leaders insist.
• The Chinese nationalist worldview has a parallel in history in preWorld War II Germany.
• Ethnic superiority, historical claims and the Aryan exceptionalism were all very familiar to the people of the world in the 1930s.
• When Hitler occupied Sudetenland, a German-speaking area of the former Czechoslovakia, Europe decided to appease him, rather than confront.
• Roosevelt was watching from afar when the European nations — like Britain, France and Italy — were celebrating the Munich Agreement.
• Unsurprisingly, Hitler violated his promise of “no further aggression” in less than one year, and World War II began.
• Where Britain was in 1939-40 is where America stands today.
• The US president Donald Trump allowed coronavirus to devastate its states before finally waking up.
• Interestingly, the countries that stood up to this contagion are mostly the Asian democracies.
• India, on the other hand, has set an example of democratic activism in combating the corona challenge.
• In the unfolding new world order, India, along with countries like America and Germany, can play a pivotal role in building a world based on “human-centric development cooperation” as suggested by Modi.
• It is time for a new Atlantic Charter: Environment, healthcare, technology and democratic liberalism can be its foundations.
• It’s about food, nutrition and livelihood security
• We need to understand the different dimensions of food security in a holistic manner in order to address this problem in its totality.
• The first is the availability of food in the market, and this is seen as a function of production.
• Great accomplishment by Indian farmers who converted a “ship to mouth” situation to a “right to food” commitment.
• Farmers are confronted at the moment with labour shortages, many of the inputs, including seeds, are expensive or unavailable, marketing arrangements including supply chains are not fully functional, pricing is not remunerative, and public procurement is also not adequate.
• The second dimension is the access to food, which is a function of purchasing power, as unless you are a farmer and grow your own food, others have to buy it.
• NFSA should widen food basket to include millets, pulses and oil.
• Steps should also be taken to avoid hidden hunger caused by the deficiency of micronutrients in the diet.
• Food security and access to nutritious, good quality food is also contingent on job security.
• We have to ensure people do not lose their jobs, and one way of doing this will be to ensure value addition to primary products.
• One example of such value addition is the Rice Biopark in Myanmar, wherein the straw, bran, and the entire biomass are utilised.
• The Amul model provides a good example from the dairy sector of improved incomes to milk producers through value addition.
• Expand the definition of work in MGNREGA to cover skilled work related to farmers and their farming activities.
• The third dimension of food security is absorption of food in the body or its utilisation, which is dependent importantly on sanitation, drinking water and other non-food factors, including public health services.
• If we can ensure food availability, food access and food absorption, then we have a fairly robust system of food and nutrition security.
• It is very critical to highlight the linkages between agriculture, nutrition and health.

Recovering early

• The Health Ministry has said that the percentage of recoveries currently stands at just over 25, almost double of what it was two weeks ago.
• There may be untested people who have recovered.
• Among the countries moving to a mass-testing strategy after a measured lockdown and successful control over viral transmission is New Zealand.
• The comparatively low death rate from COVID-19 in India, officially estimated at 3.2%, remains a topic for systematic study.
• The Johns Hopkins database gives the fatalities per 100 confirmed cases as 15.7% for the U.K. and Belgium, for example.
• There are many hypotheses for the less dismal outcome in India based on the impact of climate, benefits of immunisation, and other possible factors, but they remain untested.
• With a relaxation of the lockdown, India’s strategy will need precise and intensive measures to drive down the reproduction number for the virus.

NEWS

• Lockdown extended till May 17; curbs stay on public transport

• Maharashtra Legislative Council elections to be held on May 21
• The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday decided to hold elections to nine vacant Maharashtra Legislative Council seats on May 21, after receiving letters from the State Governor and the Chief Secretary on the feasibility of conducting the polls during the pandemic.
• The nomination process will be from May 4 to 11, the last date for withdrawal of candidature is May 14 and polling and counting on May 21.
• The ECI’s decision comes just in time for Uddhav Thackeray, who was sworn in as Chief Minister on November 28 last, giving him six months to become a member of the Assembly or the Council in order to continue in the post.
• The ECI’s schedule for the polls says the election process will be completed by May 26, a day ahead of the May 27 deadline for Mr. Thackeray.
• PM meets Ministers to discuss exit strategy
• Ahead of the scheduled end of the extended nationwide lockdown, PM Narendra Modi on Friday met key Ministers, including Home Minister Amit Shah and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, apparently to discuss an exit strategy. Sources said the PM has been holding discussions on various postlockdown aspects.
• Kuwait offers to airlift stranded Indian citizens
• The Government of Kuwait on Friday said it was willing to evacuate a large number of workers and illegal migrants from India. who are stranded in its territory, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In a detailed press statement, the Embassy of Kuwait said the Ambassador of Kuwait Jassem Al Najem has conveyed to India his government’s plans to begin the operations after the nationwide lockdown is lifted.
• WHO raises concern over use of BCG vaccine
• In a letter published in The Lancet on April 30, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros A Ghebreyesus and others highlight a few critical issues over the use of BCG vaccine for COVID-19.
• They underscore the importance of randomised controlled trials of the vaccine to understand its safety and efficacy before using it on healthcare workers.

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