There are four types of endemic human coronaviruses in the world—229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1—and people across countries commonly get infected with these. According to experts, SARS-CoV-2 virus is soon becoming the fifth endemic human coronavirus. Once the supply bottlenecks of COVID-19 vaccines are overcome, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is supposed to become yet another manageable risk. However, the last 18 months have been nightmarish, where a new killer virus ran wild amongst an immunologically naive population.
China and India together constitute almost 40 percent of the world population, and both had imposed strict lockdowns early on, despite crushing economic costs. However, China—which had the first outbreak—was able to contain the virus much more efficiently than most other countries including India, and minimise COVID-19 deaths in the interim period when vaccines were awaited. With roughly comparable populations, the trajectory that the pandemic took in both countries, based on publicly available data, has been vastly different.
China and India together constitute almost 40 percent of the world population, and both had imposed strict lockdowns early on, despite crushing economic costs.
Quantifying COVID-19’s impact in China is a difficult task, due to the restrictions on information both related to the impact of the pandemic and countermeasures by the Chinese government. Given the authoritarian regime and the strict controls on information, any effort to compare the Chinese situation with other countries is fraught with challenges; however, despite having a vast and diverse population comparable to India, China was able to keep cases and deaths remarkably under check. At the same time, after having two devastating waves spread across over a year, many believe that India is going to see a surge in cases again.
Read More at https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/covid-19-pandemic-response-comparing-the-indian-and-chinese-approaches/
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