NEW DELHI: Why is he doing it? This is the question Brazilians and indeed the rest of the world is asking as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro once again openly defied lockdown orders, set by his country’s own governors, to hold a mass rally in Sao Paolo on Sunday. All of this comes as the samba nation’s death toll from the pandemic has risen to over 2,000 – the highest in South America.

Despite a big thumbs down from his citizens — the president’s disapproval ratings have become the highest since he took office in January last year — Bolsonaro seems unapologetic about his tactics. Indeed, it has taken social media to get him to back off a bit. In a highly unusual move against a head of state, two of Bolsonaro’s Tweets and Facebook posts that gave incorrect information about the coronavirus were blocked and deleted by Twitter and Facebook last month.

In the tweets, which were posted as videos, the president walked around the streets of Brasilia claiming the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine successfully treats the coronavirus. He also encouraged an end to social distancing and isolation measures in the country, statements that have had many Brazilians up in arms.

Bolsonaro is leading Brazil to the “slaughterhouse” fumed former president Lula da Silva in a recent interview with The Guardian.

Former Indian ambassador and an expert on Latin America Deepak Bhojwani believes such moves from the Brazilian president should hardly come as a surprise. “Bolsonaro has always seen himself as the ‘Donald Trump of the tropics.’ He is a populist candidate for the far right, and he is continuing to cater to them. His move to declare churches open to cater to evangelical Christians, his insistence that ‘Brazil is open for business’ is to cater to the rich business community that voted for him. So, the more protests there are against him the more necessary it is for him to hang on to his crucial support base.”

Bolsonaro’s bid to cater to his core constituencies is not without risk. By alienating the core public and politicians he has already opened himself up to possible moves towards impeachment. There is a precedent for this. Former president Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016. Bhojwani believes that impeachment is unlikely, but he does acknowledge that things are turning worse for the president by the day. “There has been a growing groundswell movement against Bolsonaro but what has come as a real slap in the face is the fact that the Brazilian Federal Tribunal (the equivalent of the Supreme Court) has allowed local governors and mayor to impose lockdowns and not the president.

“What this means is that he has lost institutional political power to a very large extent which is hurting him. Considering that the left is going to put up a very strong candidate, I frankly don’t see Bolsonaro as being an outright winner in the next elections.”

It isn’t just at home that Bolsonaro has created problems for himself. Recently, his son Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro created problems for his father’s administration when, in a statement, he likened China’s role of hiding critical information about the pandemic as akin to what “the Soviet dictatorship did during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.” Beijing immediately reacted with the Chinese embassy in Brazil calling the words “irresponsible” and demanding an “immediate retraction.”

The diplomatic showdown is clearly not in the nation’s best interest. In 2001, over 50% of Brazilian products went to the EU. Now they go to East Asia and mostly to China. Figures also show Brazil-China was 100 billion dollars bilateral trade in 2018 and now thanks to the ongoing US-China trade war, Beijing is now turning more to Brazil for agricultural products. Given the global slowdown post-pandemic, Brazil simply cannot afford to lose Beijing.

Despite aggravating friends and allies both at home and abroad, there is one country that Bolsonaro seems to have a soft corner for and that is India. Bhojwani says that after Trump, he was one of the first leaders to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send hydroxychloroquine, which India readily agreed to.

“In his letter of thanks to our prime minister, Bolsonaro had talked about how Lord Hanuman brought the holy medicine from the Himalayas to save the life of Lakshman. It seems that from the letter he retains deep respect and affection for India.”

NEW DELHI: In the second part of an exclusive interview, Dr Niteen Wairagkar, global pandemic and new viral diseases expert speaks to Opinion Editor Ashwin Ahmad and explains how international organisations can and should ensure the equitable distribution of the vaccine for the COVID-19 virus across the world.

Q: There are many pharmaceutical companies racing to create such a vaccine. While this is needed isn’t there also a danger that this rush can do more harm than good?

A:  Vaccines are developed and given to people on the principle of what we call the ‘do no harm’ basis.  This means that when giving this vaccine safety comes first and the adverse effects are minimal. This is the principle on which all regulatory authorities operate without any compromise.

The vaccine licensing process is a very stringent one where international regulatory authorities would have gone through all the available data to ensure the vaccines are safe. Without this, the vaccine will not be given conditional approval even. Everybody needs to understand that the regulatory system is very stringent, and the safety standards are very high, which is why it takes time. So, I wouldn’t listen to any rumours or media reports, but would read the regulatory authority’s evaluation report for vaccine safety.

Q: Has this been done before?

A:  There have been precedents. Ten years back, during the 2009 influenza pandemic, the pandemic vaccine was developed and licensed with emergency pathways and deployed in the field. Then there was an Ebola outbreak in 2014-15 and in 2018-20, where the Ebola vaccine was given conditional approval and used in the field to control the outbreak while generating a lot of data on safety and efficacy which led to its licensure and WHO pre-qualification. So, these emergency regulatory pathways have been streamlined and I believe the same process will be followed for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Q: How will the process of regulating the vaccine begin? Say for instance a vaccine is perfected in India then what happens?

A:  Each country, of course, must first go through its regulator in its own country. But in the case of this pandemic all vaccines will have to go to what we call the WHO pre-qualification pathway which evaluates if it is suitable for everyone. So, once you get approval from your country’s medical body, in the US it would be the FDA for example, you would then have to apply for WHO PQ. Once the vaccine crosses the WHO pre-qualification pathway it is suitable for all countries, particularly low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Then it can be procured through UN agencies, distributed and used in these countries through public sector programs.

Q: How does one ensure that the vaccine will be made available to lower and middle-income countries as well?

A:  Once the vaccine is licensed the vaccine developer can make it available in the private sector and the private market. Each country has different regulations for this. For the public sector in lower and middle-income countries, there is a global organization called GAVI – The Global Vaccine Alliance which supports the use and deployment of these vaccines in 73 LMIC countries.

Once a vaccine is WHO pre-qualified it can be purchased through UN agencies. Usually, there is a UNICEF procurement division which procures these vaccines for Gavi eligible countries. Then this vaccine is available in the public sector. In the private sector, the developer will make it available in the market using their own sales networks and pathways.

Q: There are concerns about the high cost of the vaccine once it is developed. How do we guard against this?

A: This is a pandemic situation. Once the vaccine is developed the main question will be the vaccine manufacturing capacity. How many doses of that vaccine can be manufactured globally and how many doses will be required to protect the global population.

The global population is 7 billion so producing dosage of that amount would be next to impossible. So the steps are: increase manufacturing, get the maximum possible doses manufactured and then work on the global access, access to the vaccine where it is needed most.

The world must stand together to ensure that the vaccine is not dictated by money or where it is manufactured or who is manufacturing. No country should be in a position to nationalize the vaccine manufacturing plants. There needs to be an urgent global effort towards equitable access of COVID-19 world-over in the form of a Global COVID19 Vaccine Sharing Mechanism. A Global COVID19 Vaccine Sharing Mechanism is needed urgently to ensure equitable access to the vaccine where it is needed most and the time to start working on this mechanism is NOW.

Q: What are the international safeguards that are being put in place to ensure that the virus will be distributed equitably?

A: After the last 2009 influenza pandemic, all WHO member states signed a treaty called the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIP Framework) wherein they agreed to share the influenza pandemic vaccine globally. WHO subsequently worked with vaccine manufacturers and signed legally binding contracts to reserve 10-15% of global manufacturing capacity of influenza vaccines for use in LMIC countries.

This virtual stockpile has around 400 million doses available to WHO for use in these countries in case of a future influenza pandemic. We have this global mechanism, a template available which needs to be replicated to ensure global equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine as well. All the global groups like G20, SAARC need to support a global treaty like this to ensure that vaccine reaches where it is needed most to avert mortality and morbidity during this pandemic. The time to start working on such a global mechanism is NOW.

CHENNAI: The Chinese virus has spread to the rest of the world. It crippled thriving economies and destroyed the subsistence economies of vastly underprivileged people. More importantly, it caused death and devastation of innocent people and their livelihood across all barriers. Slowly but steadily the finger of blame for this pandemic has swung towards China. Despite best Chinese PR attempts no one believes that China sacrificed itself or handled the situation better or provided global leadership or came to anyone’s aid. On the other hand, the converging perception is that China bungled, delayed informing the rest about the pandemic in connivance with WHO and is involved in usurious ‘mask diplomacy’ tantamount to criminal negligence. The evolving consensus, and that is firmer by the passing day, is that there is a decoupling required from China. This had started even before the viral outbreak. It is now starting to gather steam with Japan and USA taking the lead. We will leave this here and come back to it later.

Very recently, China upwardly revised its death figures in Wuhan by 1290 (i.e. 40 per cent). Why? I do not know. Probably to assuage the international community that it is coming clean. Probably to signal to its own population that it is transparent and the world is griping foolishly about Chinese opacity. To me, it signals something else. First, it is proof of Chinese under-reporting. If these are the figures for Wuhan, what are the figures for the rest of China? Coming later? Even with this upward revision, China has had only three deaths per million against South Korea’s five per million. Surely, China has not managed its situation better than South Korea? Hence the real figures are still hidden. It reinforces lack of trust in China. Second, by under-reporting, China has deprived all of us of some valuable research data which would have given better clues as to how to deal with the pandemic and saved lives. Under the circumstances it is criminal. The crucial issue is however something else.

The main context is that it has unmasked the real motive. Let me amplify. In my earlier article “Coronation of the King”, I had outlined four scenarios. These were Bumbling Ignorance, Loss of Control and Evading Reality, Exploiting the Situation and Biological Warfare. My take on ‘Exploiting the Situation’ was that the situation in Wuhan could have developed accidentally due to any scenario. However since it happened, why not deliberately export it to others? ‘Exploiting the Situation’ theory fits in well with the reality that internal movement was banned in China when external bans were being contested and resisted. Also, Beijing and other major cities being unscathed to the extent of Wuhan gives credibility to this line of thought.

Let us further granulate the scenario of ‘Exploiting the Situation’. The outbreak occurs. Human to human transmission is confirmed. The SARS experience of 2003 suggests that things are bad. Realization sets in that an unknown uncontrolled evil genie is out of the bottle. The virus is going to cripple China, knock it out of its path of superpower glory. This is war-gamed quickly. A course of action is put into execution. First downplay it by continuing with the huge feast in Wuhan. Nothing is wrong. Festivities continue. Smokescreen up. The leader makes a statement to show resolute intent to curb the virus. He then dives out of the scene. The numbers are underreported. The virus is allowed to seep out to other parts of the world through departing international travellers; secure in the knowledge that the problem will surface all over the world only after two weeks. Right then things seemed to be okay for an onlooker from outside. Hugs are sought in public from gullible Italians. So others are lulled to think it is a minor local event. Information is suppressed. Outside health officials are kept at bay. They cannot assess the real deal. The WHO is subverted and used to endorse the Chinese view. All those who enforce travel bans are castigated. Meanwhile, internal travel bans are put in place. The Chinese fight a valiant battle to defeat the virus in its land. The leader then comes out of hiding to take the bows. The result: what we are seeing now. Rest of the world crippled; China back on its feet. Advantage China. Leader of the World. Once everyone is grappling with their deaths and pandemic problems, quietly release some more figures in the confusion. The context and result are clear. Deliberate action is evident for those who can analyze. The only hitch is that this plan while succeeding in ‘Exploiting the Situation’ has done damage beyond the imaginable. The world will get wise to it. A matter of time. It will be a nail in the Chinese coffin. This is straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. Except that it is a true Chinese script being played out sans Jack Ryan to save the world. He (CIA) was sleeping on duty or AWOL.

Now let us see the geonomics. The Chinese economy is set to contract by 6.8 per cent in the quarter. Most of this is in the manufacturing sector, export driven and with minimal internal consumption. There are reports that many companies are already filing for bankruptcy and there are layoffs in China (real estate and startups are mostly hit). Internationally, there is clarity that a significant portion of manufacturing and supply chain capacities will have to be relocated to outside China. The minimum I foresee is 25 per cent. That means 25 per cent job losses too. That is huge. During this pandemic, many countries will be forced to become self-reliant on their capacities in many areas. It is a matter of survival. That business will never come back to China. There are reports that all BRI projects have ground to a halt. Many of these projects are in impoverished countries whose governments might not survive the Chinese Virus. As of now they are NPAs—dead ends to nowhere and will remain so. There will be renegotiation and downsizing of many of these. I do not see new projects commencing for at least a couple of years. The tail end will be closure of many more businesses in China. China has been a heavy investor in Africa. Many African nations are now upset with China for exhibiting ‘racism’. China will experience a backlash from some of these nations. China might have recovered. Others have not. Their economies are contracting too. Unless goods are essential, no country will have the appetite or the money to buy anything from China. That means the ‘Made in China’ plan to make export-oriented hi-tech items will get hit. There is also an emotional backlash from major sections of the international community. The viral images of Italians hugging Chinese and then dying by the droves due to the Chinese Virus will not go away. These are defining moments of this war. To me it as powerful as the photo of the ‘Napalm Girl’ of the Vietnam War. It changed the course of that war. This might change the course of China. Some of us will carry it to our graves. While most of this is external to China let us see the internal dimension.

The virus from Wuhan has not exited China. There are reports that it is surfacing in the outer rims of China. There are also reports of a second wave. So it is not as if China is home and dry in a post-pandemic paradise where manufacturing is humming all over again. Then there is the issue of a debt bubble. China existed on a huge debt bubble. Which way will this bubble go? I do not know. It will not deflate or be filled up easily. A burst is on the cards. In any scenario, the outcomes for China will be nasty. Then there is the issue of military funding. China’s huge investment in building the most powerful and modern military will hit a circuit breaker. Militaries cost money. Militaries under change and modernisation cost even more. Unfortunately, if there are no wars or conflicts, huge expansion plans are dead-end investments. All this will end in loss of jobs in China and “Food Off the Chinese Household Table”. I do not think that China has the fiscal space to print its way out of trouble. I also do not think that we will see visuals of Chinese lining up in cars maintaining prim social distances to collect their weekly social security cheques. If things go bad, there will be unrest due to poverty and hunger. Then, of course, there is this issue of suppression of people’s rights. Hong Kong has not vanished. If anything the pro-democracy move will only intensify.

In all this, just factor the virus itself. It is noticeably clear that it will not vanish one fine morning. It is going to turn from a pandemic to an endemic. We will be sleeping with our enemy forever. Till a vaccine comes up, the world will not move to a sense of normalcy. The new normal will be built on isolation or interest blocks based on openness and trust with a sense of shared values. Where does a China which has “Exploited the Situation” fit into this paradigm? You must be in Pakistan, Serbia or some such place to be considered a friend if you are a Chinese. Even there I doubt if people will respect a Chinese. Remember the Pakistani TV anchor saying “Chuna laga diya”!

So what do we see? A China which is guilty. A China with huge losses in businesses and jobs. A Chinese debt bubble deflating or bursting. A China which will be shunned emotionally and physically. A China which will continue to grapple with its homemade virus in the most unadulterated form. A China with unrest amongst its 1.6 billion people. The Chinese Summer of Discontent is here. There is a pressure cooker situation in China. There was a similar situation in USSR after 1986 when Chernobyl happened. Gorbachev acknowledged that USSR ultimately collapsed in 1991 due to that disaster. It took five years in a situation where Chernobyl was a pure accident. This is a situation where Chinese guilt in “Exploiting the Situation” is clear. If this is compounded by any fact that the virus leaked out of the Wuhan Virology Institute, the pressure in the cooker will only increase. All things considered; Corona is the Chinese Chernobyl. Change is afoot. Will the inflection point arrive to trigger the Chinese collapse? Will China face another revolution? Will China democratise? No direct answers now. The funny thing about revolutions is that it takes a tinder to light a forest fire. The Chinese Virus might have finally infected its own master. It is a slow burner. Boy, when it does explode it goes into an all-consuming fission. Watch out.

A piece of advice: Do not hug a Chinese, maintain twice the recommended social distance. That, in my vocabulary, is the Viral Distance!

(Lt Gen PR Shankar (retd) put Indian Artillery on a firm path of modernisation. He is presently a professor in Aerospace Department of IIT Madras. Views expressed in this article are personal.)

NEW DELHI: The novel coronavirus is here to stay and will re-emerge from time to time as a human infection, warns Dr. K Srinath Reddy, President of the Public Health Foundation of India and a key figure in the government’s Covid-19 task force. He said that ecological degradation has resulted in a conveyor belt for viruses to travel from wildlife to veterinary populations and then on to humans. In an interview to StratNews Global Deputy Editor Parul Chandra, he said people must continue social distancing norms, strict personal hygiene and wear masks to contain the spread of the virus even in the post-lockdown period. Read on:

Q: With the countrywide Covid-19 lockdown now extended to May 3, how is it helping India contain the pandemic? By when do you expect the curve to flatten? And could the numbers spike once the lockdown is lifted?

A: The lockdown was intended to markedly slow down the speed of viral transmission, while the response capacity of the health, administrative and social systems are built up. It also prepares people to understand and accept the need for continued social distancing after the lockdown ends and life resumes at a controlled pace. It has catalysed multi-sectoral coordination, centre-state consultations and fostered a less acerbic political discourse that has at least temporarily transcended partisan divides in the interest of a unified national response.

I expect the infections to start levelling off by end of April and starting to dip by mid-May. The fall in deaths will take a couple of more weeks as there is lag time between virus entry into the body and death.  If we continue to observe social distancing and practice personal hygiene supplemented if possible, by the use of masks in public, we should be able to contain the spread even in the post-lockdown phase. We will still have the virus amidst us but we need not gift it the opportunity to leap from person to person. Lockdown is enforced discipline. Post-lockdown, personal discipline will be needed.

Q: The health ministry continues to maintain that India is yet to reach Stage 3 of the disease, i.e., community transmission? Is it really the case given that there have been reports of people with no history of recent travel abroad nor contact with someone who’s been abroad testing positive for Covid-19?

A: Different definitions have been used by different agencies to define community transmission. Without quibbling over terms, it is better for us to see if the transmission trail is mostly traceable to the first wave of virus transporters and their contacts or whether a large number of unrelated cases are cropping up beyond the clusters. So far, such a weed like sprouting of unrelated cases is not readily visible.

However, virtually every major country which has been visited by the virus so far has experienced community spread. It should be no surprise if we do too. The real question to be asked is how extensive is it and can we contain it before the virus claims the whole country as its captive territory in a swift swoop. We need to slow it down to limit loss of life till an effective vaccine is available or ‘herd immunity’ develops over an extended period of controlled exposure.

Q: While India is now ramping up the numbers of those being tested for Covid-19, should it have gone in for widespread testing from the initial stages itself just as countries like South Korea did?

A: South Korea has a much smaller population and produced its own kits in sufficient numbers. We did not have the kits to undertake that level of testing. It is also a mistake to associate only high testing levels with the success of South Korea while comparing with Italy which has an older population, a far higher proportion of women smokers and a high exposure to flights from China to the Lombardy region where the Chinese had a large workforce. India had to compete with OECD countries for test kits, while trying to ramp up production in the country.

Further, testing is neither infallible (false negative or false positive results can occur) nor predictive of future risk (a person who is negative today can get infected tomorrow). Data from China show that a low positivity rate on mass testing means that many resources will have to be consumed if case finding was to depend only on testing. Kerala has done well with much lower levels of testing compared to the USA and UK or even Delhi. Belgium and Bolivia have populations of the same size. Bolivia performed only 2.4% of the tests performed by Belgium but has so far had only 31 deaths compared to 5,453 in Belgium. So, it is simplistic to harp on widespread testing as the most important measure to combat this epidemic, without taking into account the socio-demographic and environmental conditions of the population.

Q: Will India’s already weak and overburdened public health systems be able to handle a full-blown Stage 3 scenario when even more advanced nations like the US, UK, France and Italy with far better public healthcare systems have struggled to cope with the pandemic?

A: The scale of the epidemic is much less severe so far in India, compared to those in OECD countries. We may benefit from the fact that we initiated partial containment measures early on from February, went into total lockdown in late March and are continuing it through April with slow and staggered relaxation. The predicted ‘avalanche’ has not happened so far and we may yet avoid a major surge in May. We have also given ourselves time to prepare the health system for a stronger response than would have been possible in mid-March.

Q: What lessons can India draw from this pandemic to improve its public health infrastructure?

A: India needs to recognise the value of investing in a robust health system, especially in a stronger public health component. From disease surveillance, forecasting and modelling to prevention, containment and primary care, there are many elements that need to be greatly strengthened. In the context of zoonotic infectious diseases, a  ‘one health’ surveillance system needs to be developed which integrates information of microbial spread in wildlife, veterinary population and human communities. Other infectious diseases as well as maternal and child health cannot be neglected. Non-communicable diseases and mental health need attention too. Universal health coverage is a commitment we must fulfil to the people. Apart from higher levels of public financing, it calls for health workforce expansion and strengthening of healthcare infrastructure. Health systems cannot suddenly develop surge capacity to meet public health emergencies if they have not been functioning well in the steady state.

Q: What are your thoughts on the manner  in which China contained the pandemic? Could China have alerted the world sooner about the new virus that was killing people in Wuhan?

A: I will respond as a public health observer and refrain from any political comment. We must distinguish between the local authorities in Wuhan and the national authorities of China.  The local authorities, both in the party and the civic administration, failed to take note early on and instead punished whistleblowers as ‘rumour mongers’. They were sacked for this misconduct by the national authorities who notified WHO in late December 2019. India responded early by stopping flights from China in February. Throughout January  and February, there was no adverse action or complaint concerning China from the USA, UK or the EU. It is only when there was a surge of cases in these countries, which had delayed their response, that complaints against China were voiced. The sequence of events suggests that China’s national government did not delay the warning to WHO or to other countries, though there were lapses at the provincial level in Wuhan.

Q: Has the WHO failed in its task of helping the world contain the spread of Covid-19 especially with many believing it took too long to declare it a pandemic?

A: The WHO is the world’s premier public health agency which has provided the platform for a concerted global action against many diseases. The declaration of a pandemic comes when several countries from many continents are involved. The label may have been delayed but the facts were available in public domain even before the formal declaration. Sometimes, inter-governmental bureaucracies, which have to go through consultations and data verification exercises with member states, may not be as nimble as independent agencies because of  in-built process delays. However, member states too have to act based on their best judgement. India did so, through several containment measures even before the lockdown. Countries which had delayed their own actions boast of great public health expertise and the best intelligence gathering ability in the world. Their delayed response is not explained by WHO’s actions.

Q: Is Covid-19 here to stay? And are we going to see more such instances of a pathogen crossing from animals to humans, something that’s being blamed on the damage humankind has been causing to the environment? 

A: The novel Coronavirus has emerged on this planet and will continue to stay, if not in humans then in an animal reservoir. It may re-emerge periodically as a human infection, given an opportunity created by humans. There is no doubt that ecological despoliation, especially deforestation and industrial farming of animal foods for human consumption, have created a conveyor belt for viruses to travel from wildlife to veterinary populations and then on to humans. We definitely need to change the way we are creating environmental havoc lest we unleash more zoonotic viruses upon ourselves. As we sow, so we shall reap.

Q: Scientists are racing against the clock to develop vaccines to combat the  virus? How long do you think it will take to develop a vaccine? 

A: Several countries are rushing to develop and test a vaccine against this virus. Two Indian firms have entered the global race and others too may join them. The development of a vaccine has several stages, from lab to animals to humans. Efficacy and safety of any candidate vaccine will have to be ascertained in clinical trials. All of these steps will take over a year to be completed. Then large scale production has to be organised, for the vaccine to be available across the world. Around 18 months is a possible timeline, if all steps proceed smoothly.

NEW DELHI: Diplomacy isn’t all about swish evening soirees, fine food and wine or jetting around the globe for high-level meetings. It’s also about dealing with extraordinary situations such as the one presented by the Chinese virus with most of the world under lockdown.
It’s under these challenging circumstances that India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and foreign missions based here worked overtime to ensure foreign nationals could go home. Such evacuations are always daunting, and in the present case even more so with a highly infectious contagion. Besides, no commercial flights have been operating in or out of India since March 22, nor is any public transport available.

As an Indian diplomat involved in the evacuation operation told StratNews Global, “ In such evacuations we need micro-level information and coordination. Collecting the information and implementing it is a challenge during this period of lockdown.”

So far 35,000 foreign nationals from 48 countries have been evacuated from all parts of India. Russia, for instance, had evacuated 1,500 nationals by mid-April with flights for home taking off from New Delhi and Goa. The embassy of Thailand too has been busy arranging the evacuation of nearly 3,000 Thai nationals. It’s a Herculean task, no doubt, and here’s a look at how the MEA and foreign missions are going about it.

UNITED KINGDOM:

You may have seen her in videos with a mask on, informing British nationals stranded here about charter flights being arranged to send them home. Or even overseeing arrangements at the airport: Meet Jan Thompson, the UK’s Acting High Commissioner leading the charge to rescue stranded British citizens.

It’s a task that means reaching out via Twitter to anxious Britons stranded here as they await evacuation. On Easter, Thompson tweeted, “ Brits still stranded in India:wishing you the happiest Easter possible….Working to get you home as soon as possible, please bear with us.”

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in a tweet on April 17 described the evacuation efforts in India as a “huge and logistically-complex operation” and said it was “working tirelessly with the Indian government and state authorities to help more British travellers get home.”

The British High Commission spokesperson in New Delhi said, “Over 3,700 British nationals have arrived back in the UK so far on charter flights organised by the UK government. At the end of the third round of charter flights announced on April 17, we will have helped over 9,000 people return to the UK. We are looking to arrange additional flights from locations in India where we know there are a large number of British nationals still stranded.”

The spokesperson said that 38 charter flights have flown from India to the UK between April 8 and 27. The latest flights will cover Mumbai, New Delhi, Goa, Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru.

“India is a priority country for the UK government charter flights with a large number of Britons seeking to return and a lack of commercial options. Organising these flights is a huge and complex operation made more challenging by the size of the country and the restrictions on movement that are in place. Teams in India and London are continuing to work around the clock to overcome the obstacles and get people home,” said the spokesperson.

The spokesperson also said, “We are working closely with the Government of India, state governments and local authorities to ensure British travellers are able to return home safely. We are grateful for the support we have received to date.”

AUSTRALIA

Barely weeks since his arrival in India, Australia’s High Commissioner-designate Barry O’Farrell has been busy overseeing the repatriation of hundreds of his country’s nationals.

But not all of the 6,000 Australian nationals registered with the high commission want to return home. Those keen on getting back are required to register with the high commission. With no Australian airlines operating between the two countries, charter flights are being organised, O’Farrell said.

“The Ministry of External Affairs, the state governments and the police have been very cooperative,” O’ Farell said, adding that “We’re doing the paper-work for flights, organising transport for the citizens doing our own immigration and visa checks.”

Looking ahead, a flight leaves for Adelaide on Sunday from Delhi and another from Chennai. A third flight will leave for the same city from Mumbai.

GERMANY

The German Embassy’s cafeteria has a new if temporary name: It’s the “EvacSituatRoom” meaning evacuation-situation room. It’s from here that the planning and logistical effort to fly German nationals home is being executed. Add to that the sprawling lawns of Ambassador Walter Lindner’s residence that were thrown open to their nationals wanting to go home. Of course this was in late March when the weather in Delhi was still balmy.

By Saturday (April 5), the German mission had managed to send home as many as 3,200 of their own and other European nationals on board 12 charter flights. Lindner confirmed in a statement on the embassy’s website that the flights began as early as March 25, the day after the lockdown was announced, and involved in picking up passengers from seven Indian cities flying them on to Frankfurt.

“The challenges were huge then, and are by no means less demanding today: countrywide lock-down (just extended until May 4th), more and more sealed-off hotspots, no flights and hardly any public transport, closed hotels and shops, localisation of individual travellers across a country bigger than Europe, necessary special permits, and the need to minimize exposure. Nevertheless, our “Team India” (Embassy and our 4 General Consulates) was always there for you – almost 24/7,” said the German envoy in a statement on Saturday.

Lindner admitted that with the rising number of Covid-19 cases in India and “hence growing restrictions of freedom of movement for everyone, including embassy and consulate staff and diplomatic cars, any endeavor of such kind is getting more and more complex and challenging.”

USA

“The United States mission to India has repatriated approximately 3,500 people to the United States on 15 international flights since March 31.” That was the US Embassy spokesperson in Delhi who also admitted that “It is difficult to say with any certainty exactly how many Americans intend to seek repatriation to the United States. We are now re-assessing demand for repatriation flights, and working to arrange a potential final set of special chartered flights for US citizens and their families departing India.”

Repatriation has also meant directing US nationals here to the nearest international airport amidst the nation-wide lockdown. As Alice G. Wells, a diplomat in the US State Department’s South Asia Bureau said, “we’re responding to requests for assistance from thousands of Americans located in cities and villages spread across a vast area.”

NEW DELHI: As many as 3,336 Indians across 53 countries who have tested positive for the Coronavirus remain stranded abroad while another 25 have died on foreign shores as a result of the infection. Sources said the highest number of infected Indians, 785, is in Kuwait. It’s probably the reason why India sent a medical team there some days ago. Incidentally, Kuwait’s total Coronavirus infection tally by Thursday was 1,524.

Other Gulf states with a significant number of infected Indians still there are Qatar 420, Oman 297, UAE 238, Saudi Arabia 186 and Bahrain 185. A major chunk comprises blue collar workers desperate to return home. In Iran, 308 Indians who are Covid-19 positive still remain.

In south-east Asia, Singapore with its large expatriate population has the second highest number of Indians who have tested positive abroad, 634 while Malaysia has 37. Among other countries, Italy has 91 infected Indians, Portugal has 36, Ghana 29, US 24, Switzerland 15 and France 13.

While India halted its evacuation efforts once flights were suspended, the Ministry of External Affairs has been assisting foreign missions to evacuate their nationals from India. By Thursday, nearly 35,000 foreign nationals from 48 countries had been repatriated from India.

Within India, as the government steps-up the numbers being tested for the Coronavirus infection, 650,000 testing kits were expected to arrive from China on Thursday. Of these 5,50,000 are rapid antibody testing kits while 1,00,000 lakh are RNA extraction kits.

The Indian embassy in Beijing as well as the consulate in Guangzhou have played a key role in expediting the sourcing of these kits, sources said. There were challenges such as supply crunch, local regulations requiring registration and finally customs and flight clearances that were needed to ensure the testing kits were dispatched swiftly to India.

Indian missions in Korea, Malaysia, UK, France, Canada and the US have also got firm quotations from companies there to source more testing kits.

India is also sourcing more personal protection equipment (PPE) kits for its frontline medical workers. Indian missions “are closely coordinating with agencies abroad and a large consignment of PPE is expected shortly,” sources said. Incidentally, China had donated 1,70,000 PPE but nearly 50,000 failed quality control tests.

Thus far, the government has given the nod to supplying Hydroxychloroquine tablets to 55 countries including the U.S., UK, Russia and France. India is selling the drug to 21 countries while smaller quantities comprise grants, the sources said. These include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Seychelles and Mauritius have also been supplied with this drug.

While India has been laying emphasis on global efforts to fight the pandemic, it’s not commented yet on U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to stop funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) while accusing it of mismanaging the pandemic.

“Our efforts and attention are fully focused on dealing with Covid-19 and the question can be revisited once we have addressed the crisis,” said sources.

NEW DELHI: On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell, cutting off $400 million in funding for the World Health Organisation (WHO), accusing it of mishandling the Coronavirus outbreak by overlooking China’s many missteps. But he hinted it may be only temporary.

“I am directing my administration to halt funding while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the Coronavirus,” he told journalists during a White House press briefing, adding that the WHO had accepted China’s claims about the Coronavirus at “face value”. He described as “disastrous” its opposition to the U.S. imposing travel restrictions on people coming from China.

China, which contributes 10 per cent to the WHO (against 15 per cent by the U.S.), jumped to the agency’s defence, warning that the decision would undermine international cooperation at a time when it was most needed. China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said: “This U.S. decision will weaken the WHO’s capabilities and undermine international cooperation.” He underscored that “China will as always support the WHO in playing an important role in international public health and global anti-epidemic response” but did not indicate if his country would make up the deficit in the agency’s budget.

The Chinese support for the WHO comes at a time when the role of its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been under increasing criticism over the Coronavirus outbreak. Ghebreyesus, who was elected WHO chief with China’s backing, is widely perceived as doing Beijing’s bidding. He has been criticised for attempting to cover up the virulent outbreak in China and delaying its formal declaration as a pandemic.

Critics say Trump is trying to cover up his own mishandling of the Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. He initially dismissed it and by the time he got his act together thousands had died with the death toll overtaking China’s. Others see echoes of Trump’s anti-UN posture: Recall in 2017 the U.S. withdrew from UNESCO after the agency admitted Palestine as a member. Then again, in 2018 he cut off funding for the UN Relief & Works Agency which oversees development in the Palestinian territories. It turned out he had nothing against the agency as such, his problem was the Palestinians whom he accused of not striking a peace deal with Israel!