The current Covid-19 pandemic is a war-like situation where we should be ready to ramp up infrastructure and facilities rapidly if the need arises, said Dr Ashok Seth, Chairman, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, in conversation with Prabhu Chawla, Editorial Director, The New Indian Express, and senior journalist and author Kaveree Bamzai at TNIE Expressions, a series of live webcasts with people who matter.
“Nobody expected that we would need such vast infrastructure until this pandemic. Even the West which spends way more (than India) could not cope with the infection. It drew attention to how healthcare is the most important. Healthcare workers are ready to sacrifice their lives for saving lives and indigenous manufacturing/production is getting ready for it,” the cardiologist said while speaking about how Covid-19 has exposed our healthcare system and what needs immediate fixing.
“Aatmanirbhar is good, but it should have been there earlier. For that, we need policy revamps that are entrepreneur-friendly, research, innovation-friendly in order to create better infrastructure.”
On the availability of vaccines, Dr Seth said we don’t know which vaccine will work or is full-proof yet.
“Producing any vaccine in the country is not an issue as India is the biggest vaccine manufacturer in the world. But we need to look at how many months of immunity it offers.
Till we figure out all this, we cannot promise anything. However, it will still take a year and a half to complete for a country our size — mid of 2021 we could have something after all the trials are done and approved,” he said.
Speaking on how much we know about the disease after six months and how we should learn to live with it, he said, “It’s an unprecedented form of infection by a very new virus and we are coming up with new learnings every day.
Think of a non-living particle that has so much power that it has brought the world to a standstill. We could have never imagined it. Science is still researching. The largest number of papers that came out in a short time is on Covid-19.” He went on to emphasise the importance of wearing masks and maintaining physical distance.
“In a lab-based controlled atmosphere, it has been observed that the droplets can spread to 6 feet but what if there’s a wind? It may travel further.” The cardiologist specified that the worst might seem to be over but we still have a long way to go.
“We should put in efforts to ramp up infrastructure… Every state is in a different stage of the disease. With the dense population like in our country, individualised to a region and area, policies need to be reviewed and developed from time to time. We cannot be too intelligent about this virus. Review needs to be conducted regularly,” he explained.