​ Readiness, not panic: On India and COVID-19

The lessons of the past should serve as a good guide, especially the learnings from three years of COVID-19. The country’s COVID-19 dashboard has seen some activity in recent weeks, and the total number (since January 2025) of COVID cases is currently at 3961 (as on June 2, 2025, 8 a.m.), and the number of deaths recorded as 32. While a figure in 1000s seems a bit alarming, it is still a small number in a country with a population of over 1.4 billion. It is also important to take a look at the full picture. Not all States have had a day-on-day hike in numbers testing positive for COVID, and all hikes are still in the single or low double digits. Also, 2,188 people have been discharged since, underlining what experts have been saying as the curve rose this year: that the variants causing infection now are Omicron subvariants and that they are neither more transmissible nor do they cause worse disease than in the past.

While panic and anxiety might be unwarranted, a sense of caution and precautionary approach are advisable, particularly for those with vulnerabilities and co-morbid conditions. Experience from the pandemic is that people with other pre-existing co-morbidities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 infection. Common comorbidities include hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and kidney diseases, and advancing age (post 60 years). People with these conditions must start masking up in public places, and hand wash regularly. Former World Health Organization Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan has said the recent immunity from the pandemic will stand in good stead, but again, to take possible precautions including giving boosters or vaccine shots, especially to the vulnerable. This is where the government must step in, as COVID vaccines or boosters are not available in most parts of the country, even urban centres. India, a signatory to the World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement, must first ensure that stockpiles of vaccines and diagnostic kits are created and distributed across the country. Both public and private sector hospitals must ensure that health infrastructure — particularly the availability of medical oxygen, adequate beds and health-care personnel — is in a state of readiness. Another scenario that must be avoided at all costs is the deliberate obfuscation of data on true numbers on infections or deaths as during the pandemic. Instead, transparency and efficiency must guide both the Centre and the States, this time, irrespective of how the COVID curve behaves. But panic is not the same as preparedness: one is debilitating, the other is enabling.