Covid-2019 has spread across the world. Conferences are getting cancelled and global markets are in freefall

There was bloodbath on Indian markets throughout this week. It wasn’t because they were spooked by the communal riots in a lower-income part of the national Capital. No, the markets plunged on account of the impact of the Covid-2019, which has claimed 2,800 lives and infected 83,000, globally. Thousands of flights and major conferences across the world are being cancelled. Facebook’s flagship F8 developer conference,  scheduled for May in San Jose, California,  became the latest casualty. The Swiss Government’s decision to ban gatherings of over 1,000 people until March 15 has also led to the cancellation of the Geneva Motor Show, one of the biggest auto shows in the world. The global tourism industry is already in a freefall. The cruise industry has been particularly hit hard after Coronavirus ravaged the Diamond Princess. While the Indian stock exchanges followed plummeting global indices, it would be facile to dismiss this decline as a cascading global impact. Indian manufacturing has crucial dependencies built on East Asian manufacturing. A decline in supply may also affect consumption patterns, which may lead to joblessness, fuel inflation and, thus, impact the economy. Dependence on China for supplies spans across sectors and sub-sectors, and in many cases is as high as 60 per cent. As the virus spread to Japan and South Korea alongside China, many industrialists fear that production will come to a shuddering halt by April and supplies of critical components will dwindle. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressed as much concern, publicly declaring a wait and watch mode of three weeks. In addition, as the impact of the Coronavirus spreads to other nations in Europe and the Western hemisphere, there will be an impact on the Indian services industry as well.

 With China’s share of fresh incidence of the disease plummeting, other nations are facing the brunt now. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number within it for the first time. While the global health organisation has not declared a pandemic-like situation at the moment, its potential in the near future cannot be ruled out. And it is here that globally nations must be well prepared. Challenges for Governments are immense: They have to not only ramp up healthcare facilities but also address the issue of commodity shortages. On a positive note, the  Covid-2019 is also an opportunity for Governments to strengthen their local systems instead of remaining dependent on greater powers. In the Indian context, we must worry about human lives given our clotted density of population than just the economic fallout. Both the Central as well as State Governments must be prepared to evolve swift healthcare protocols. We must not forget that it was inaction, almost certainly deliberate, by the British colonial authorities in 1919 that led to the spread of the Spanish influenza outbreak, which killed an estimated 10 per cent of undivided India’s population. Access to healthcare outside major metropolitan areas is extremely limited and several critical drugs need the supplies of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from China. It seems incomprehensible that there have been only three confirmed cases in the country, all from Kerala. There is significant human traffic between India and China and with the huge outbreak in Northern Italy, where a significant Punjabi population works in the dairy industry, the Government should be at panic stations. There is no doubt that the recent riots in the northeast part of Delhi were unfortunate but if India catches the flu, the impact will be much, much worse. This is the time to be prepared with mock drills.