Can you quarantine an entire nation?

"Now what is it that you are blaming the Indian government for this time? The swine flu did not originate in India, so we are not to blame for this. Furthermore, it is a pandemic; there are more than 168 countries which have been affected by this. Why blame the government for this?"
When people across nations were reeling under this influenza, we were sitting in our living rooms enjoying the bulletin on our television sets. We did nothing till the 17th of May when the first patient was screened at the Hyderabad International airport. Even then, but for a few eye-washing steps we did nothing. Now when it has reached epic proportions and hundreds of cases have been registered, we 'react' and how? We 'react' by shutting downs institutes and complete cities. What we still did not acknowledge is that we cannot go quarantining entire cities. Shutdowns will not stop the virus, what it will do is create panic. Ironically the government itself issues as Don't-Panic notice. Blames people and media for creating this panic and rush. Will we ever grow up? Will this delinquent behaviour ever end?

"Okay, there were cases like these before as well, sample bird flu. These are all viral. How can you prepare for something you do not know?"
No we cannot prepare for the unknown. But we can learn from our past experiences. What this exposed is that we do not have a good crisis management machinery in place. Our stance needs to change from a react-ive one to a proactive one. We still lack a clear direction. The notices that were issued were too less and far-spaced. We are still importing testing kits in a few hundreds everyday. There is only one institute that can perform these tests, i.e., the NIV, Pune and it is so overburdened by the number of requests (around 650 a day!) that it is turning down further requests for tests. We need to have a strong conformity of infrastructure in place. It is if-I-contracted-this-where-will-I-go syndrome that is haunting people more than the fear of the virus. Where do we go, if we are apprehensive? To the government hospitals (if we ignore that fact how ill-equipped they are!) and here the medical attendants turn you off saying that there are already enough cases. Now where does one go? To a private hospital? And what are the odds that the government has not yet issued a list of private hospitals that are authorised to test.
When a situation such as this strikes, one of the first things that strikes some people is ‘business’. Sick! How else would you define people trying to hoard and even black-market the N-95 masks or even TamiFlu in certain cases. Inspite of the heavy culture talk (that has now become a trademark of India) we do often, we lag way behind in terms of some primary things like ‘social responsibility’. We still throw our garbage on the road, have a heavy not-my-problem attitude, don’t bother to carry handkerchiefs around, lack the basic etiquette that is taught to the kindergarten kids and feel that things like swine flu are pretty exotic and out of this land to infect us!
What we are also overlooking is the fact that WHO has issued a notice saying that even if the flu plateaus now, it will resurface again in winter, it has put the number of people estimated to contract this at around 2.2bn,almost 30% of the world population! The national labs say that cheaper testing kits are coming not before a month. We still don't have a vaccine; even Tamiflu at best is questionable. Are we prepared for all this? Or are we doing what we are best at: play the waiting game; wait till it strikes that big!
What we cannot ignore is the financial hit that we will take. Mexico lost close to $55mn a day during shutdown. The headlines on BBC World yesterday morning were, “The commercial capital of India shuts down”. You cannot shut down financial hubs like Mumbai where thousands of people are dependent on daily wages. And as a senior journalist put it, If you are an 'aam-aadmi's' government you definitely cannot ignore the 'aam-dani of that aam-aadmi!

We Indians And Optimism!

Indians are the most optimistic people you would ever come across.We are taught to be illogically optimistic right from ourchildhood and we even outgrow that as the number of candles on our cake increases.A mom tells her 3yr old kid stories ofhow he'll grow up and rule the country as she makes some dinner in her makeshift hut from whatever little she could forageall day.Optimist.A child prays that his test on the next day be postponed because he has not prepared well.Optimist.Youassume that there won't be a traffic jam today when you drive to the office.An Optimist again.A group of people sit down todiscuss about the new government and hope that the new government brings in some real good reforms and they'll do yougood.A bunch of Optimists.Someone in some distant town has gone to the nearby temple to pray that it may not rain on the final day of the test match because India is in a winning position.Optimist.An old man hopes that his alone sugar levels will hit normal and he will get to eat his favourite sweetmeat.An Optimist and veteren at it.The list goes on,well you may ask what is wrong in optimism?Well nothing,but for optimism we would all be living in acynical,depressing world.Some may even argue that it has got this placebo effect on our lives,because but for it the oldman in the tests lab might not find enough reasons to live n cheer about nor the mother in the hut.But what could be morally and mentally damaging could be the being optimistic and doing nothing about it,like the kidpraying that the exam be postponed,the prayer per se is harmless but what would damage would be the fact that he will growup to be an adult who wants something and does nothing about it,just hopes or prays.You want to crack that managemententrance every year,but you just hope that the project that you get at the end of the year would be pretty easy and you cando away without slogging more than 9.5hrs a day.This is a dangerous corollary of the optimism theory,that leaves everythingon your disaster management skills,which are good but might not save something as important and improbable as your career.This is how we operate.No,am not drawing parallels with our financially better off counterparts but a bit of logic mixed with this can take us a long way.