Only 32% of the total population in India is fully immunized.
India clinches 19 spots in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking of Best and Worst Places Amid the Pandemic, marking a turnaround for a country witnessing a Covid outbreak. fastest growing in the world earlier this year.
The South Asian country is currently ranked 26th in the monthly snapshot, which measures where the virus is being handled most effectively with the least social and economic upheaval. The alliance panel evaluates 53 major economies across 12 data points related to virus containment, the economy and opening up.
India’s improvement was largely due to the rapid reopening of the economy after daily infections subsided and the initially sluggish vaccination drive picked up. The country has now administered more than one billion doses of the drug.
High levels of natural immunity also have potential in the country to limit infections, with some serological surveys putting pre-infection rates as high as 97% in some areas. After reporting a world record of more than 400,000 cases a day in early May when delta variation tore through a crowded nation of nearly 1.4 billion people, pushing its healthcare system to near collapse, New infections have now dropped to less than 7,000.
What factors have driven India’s performance?
Of the 12 indicators that make up a country’s Resilience score, the biggest contributor to India’s rise in November was the reopening of borders to vaccinated travelers from across the country. In the world. This puts it in a group mainly composed of developed Western economies that are welcoming back visitors.
The second driver of India’s leap was the increase in flight capacity in November compared to the same period in 2019, as people continued to travel for business and leisure. The domestic traffic recovery has been buoyant for a few months but with the addition of more international flights, India is now in the top 10 for the Flight Resilience index.
While official cases still run into the thousands a day, its huge population means that India’s per capita infection rate is now just 23 per 100,000 people in November, roughly equal to Ranked No. 1 November, United Arab Emirates.
Peak GDP growth is expected in fiscal 2022 of 9.5%, one of the highest in the world, also underpinning its performance.
What is the situation on the ground now?
Pretty normal. Most restrictions in the states, which oversee public health issues, have been relaxed in recent months after cases remained low despite the country’s peak festive season. .
Malls, schools, restaurants, cinemas and bars have reopened while many workplaces are pushing employees back to work.
With the emergence of the omicron variant, India’s healthcare authorities have reintroduced airport screening as well as home quarantine for fully immunized travelers from places where there has been omicron case detection. The country has yet to report a case of the latest variant, although scientists believe the omicron will likely go undetected for now.
What does India need to do to further improve its ranking?
India has a large second unvaccinated population: only 32% of the total population is fully vaccinated. Anecdotally, health workers are struggling to lure some residents in rural areas back for a second dose, and those under the age of 18, who make up a third of India’s population, still don’t. eligible for injection.
The country also struggles with incomplete and patchy genome sequencing, meaning it cannot identify and track new variants fast enough. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been criticized for disregarding the early warning signs of the delta’s existence before it was seen as a worrying variant in May, allowing gatherings Masses continue to take place during state elections and religious events despite soaring infection rates.
The emergence of the omicron, which has been identified in more than a dozen countries within a week of its identification, is raising concerns that India may again be too slow to respond to a new variant. Its high degree of reopening means any resurgence of the virus will spread faster than where containment measures remain in place, a situation where India’s fall in the rankings would quickly return.
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