The world came to a standstill in April of 2020. It is probably the greatest challenge we have ever faced since World War II. This infection’s impact can be seen in almost all spheres of life be it business, economy, culture, ecology, politics, and several other areas. It has left us wondering what recovery from this pandemic would look like. Thousands of people have lost their jobs and several others have had their income cut due to the virus. The daily wage workers lost all forms of employment due to the lockdown and were seen migrating on foot to their homes thousands of kilometres away. The GDP fell more than 23% and it has been described as the worst recession since the great depression of the 1930s. International travel came to a stop and which led to huge losses to already ailing airlines.
However, just like every coin has two sides, the pandemic has given us some positive news as well. In the middle of all the sad and depressing news, there are few good news as well. In this article, I will be mainly focusing on a few of the positive aspects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fewer Deaths Due to Road Accidents
Road accidents in India are a huge menace and have claimed over 1.5 lakh lives in the country in the year 2018 alone. The biggest reason for these accidents is over-speeding of vehicles. Human error, road environment, and the condition of the vehicle are other major reasons causing road accidents. India ranks 1st in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries reported in the World Road Statistics followed by China and the United States. As per the WHO Global Report on Road Safety of 2018, India accounts for almost 11% of the accident related deaths in the World. This figure accounts for almost 65% of the total deaths in the country. Accordingly, it is safe to say that the major reason for deaths in India is road accidents.
Majority of Indians were locked in their respective homes due to the country-wide lockdown and the roads were completely empty. That is why the number of deaths due to road accidents had come down suddenly.
When the Covid-19 lockdown was as its peak, there were 20,300 fewer deaths in crashes or accidents on Indian roads. According to the quarterly data provided by states and UTs to the Supreme Court committee on road safety, between April and June this year, 20,732 lives were lost in road crashes compared to 41,032 during the same period in 2019, which was a fall of 49.47%.
In general, just in the first six months of the year, road deaths declined by as much as 23,400 deaths. While more than 85% of these lives were saved when the lockdowns were at their peak, the data also shows that the fatalities reduced by 8% before the lockdown was imposed i.e. the period between January to March compared to last year. Not only the fatalities, but there was also an overall decrease in accidents across the country during the lockdown. Total crashes reduced by more than 63,000 in the period between April and June.
Due to the nation-wide lockdown period, the number of persons who suffered road injuries also decreased by over 69,000.
If we talk numbers, Uttar Pradesh reported the maximum decrease in loss of life by 3,275 during the lockdown, followed by Tamil Nadu with 2,193 lesser deaths, Maharashtra had 1,617 lesser death, Rajasthan’s death toll decreased by 1,484 and Madhya Pradesh reported 1,449 lesser deaths due to road accidents. The national capital, Delhi also reported 217 fewer deaths.
Before the lockdown too, the number of road accidents fell by more than 6,500, while road injuries declined by 4,457 between the Jan and March period. Road safety experts have said this reduction in deaths, accidents and injuries were due to two reasons; enactment of the amended Motor Vehicle Act with provision for high penalty and the lockdown due to pandemic. The act, with several provisions for improving road safety and a special focus on tougher penalties, which includes higher fines, jail term, suspension of licenses and cancellation of registration for major traffic violations, was passed by the Parliament last year.
Non- COVID Related Deaths Decreased, Emergency Cases Lower
When coronavirus cases first emerged in India, authorities acted swiftly. They halted public transit, scrambled to stockpile medical gear and ordered more than 1.3 billion residents to stay indoors. Everyone braced for the worst.
The fear was that if COVID-19 were to spread through India's densely crowded cities, especially its slums, millions could die. The toll could be much worse than in Europe or the United States, where there are many more doctors and hospitals per capita.
But about five weeks later, parts of the country are were seeing a dramatic drop in mortality. Funeral directors and ambulance drivers were bewildered. Instead of seeing a deluge of COVID-19 patients, many say their facilities were less crowded.
The outcome of the pandemic is marked by a gradual reduction of deaths due to other illnesses. The toll due to general illnesses has reduced. This is what data from various hospitals and health departments have shown.
It isn’t just fewer accidents. In these Covid times, the number of emergency cases rushed to hospitals too has come down drastically and so have the number of deaths. This fall in the number of heart attacks, strokes and emergency procedures is not a trend unique to India.
Doctors have put forward several possible explanations for this some obvious — like less stress and reduced pollution — and others not so obvious like fewer medical interventions, including unnecessary procedures. According to the data from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the number of people who died owing to diabetes, hypertension and heart problems in March was 729 in 2017, 833 in 2018, 937 last and just 595 in March this year.
Parts of India recorded dramatic falls in the number of deaths at a time when funeral parlours were bracing for a surge amid the coronavirus crisis. According to experts, the trend suggested that deaths from COVID-19, which are recorded separately and generally announced before overall mortality data, were not being under-reported as has happened in other countries. But emergency room doctors, officials, and crematoriums noted that strict lockdowns had cut the number of road traffic accidents and deaths on India’s packed railways, and may also be deterring relatives from reporting a family death.
Meanwhile, deaths in some countries were rising sharply, in India, where overall data is unavailable, the opposite seemed to be happening in some places, leaving hospitals, funeral services and cremation sites wondering what is going on.
According to municipal data, Central Mumbai, home to some 12 million people, saw the number of deaths fall by about 21% in March compared with the same month of 2019.Overall deaths fell by as much as 67% in Ahmedabad, the biggest city of Gujarat, over the same period. Data from at least two other cities, along with accounts from state health officials, show a similar pattern. Half a dozen funeral businesses and crematoriums also reported slumps in business, especially in April.
A recent Reuters also report found a similar trend in many cities across India with fewer burials and cremations during the lockdown period than during the same period last year. Several doctors in their discussion groups and on Twitter have remarked on the sudden reduction in emergency admissions by 50-60% even though the emergency services of most large hospitals have stayed open. They felt that the difficulty in transportation and moving around alone could not explain this sufficiently. So, what explains it?
Lack of unanticipated exertion in daily life, reduced work-related stress, drop in pollution, not eating out and hence cutting out trans fats, and people getting to spend more relaxed time with families would definitely have helped bring down emergencies, such as acute coronary events or stroke. It can’t be that people are staying back home despite an emergency, as they would definitely rush to a hospital, are some of the reasons given by doctors to explain this phenomenon.
Decline in Elective Surgeries
There has been a drastic fall in the crime and suicide rate during the lockdown period. Since most people were at home the vehicular traffic on road was minimal and due to which the accidents were very few and burglars did not dare to break-in into the houses. But on a larger picture, the prime reason for fewer crimes was mass deployment of police forces and visible policing. This was emergency like situation, as experienced during war times. This was also probably the largest deployment of forces 24/7 during a specific period and for a specific reason since the last few decades. This visible policing had a huge impact say some officers.
Several state police have confirmed that there has been a significant fall in the number of murders, suicides, and unnatural deaths between the March and April period alone, the period of the first phase of lockdown, as opposed to the same period last year.
Numerous states saw a 40% fall in murder cases in the period between March and April this year as opposed to the same period last year. Similarly, there has been a 70% fall in rape cases and a 100% fall in cases of violence against women and children.
According to the police, there were eight murders in Kerala in the period this year as opposed to 13 last year. The number of missing cases in the same period this year is 132 compared to 851 last year. Suicides have come down from 445 in 2019 to 192 this year. Unnatural deaths in the same period last year was 1052, compared to 630 this year.
There has been a decline in the industrial accidents as well. Metro cities like Bangalore received at least 10 industrial accidents in the same period last year, and since all activities came to a halt, there were no such accidents reported.
Decline in Respiratory Diseases
The number of deaths related to respiratory diseases has also fallen drastically owing to improvement in air quality, according to data from several hospitals throughout the country.
Thanks to the global lockdown of the majority of human industrial activities, the substantial reduction in air pollution in the urban areas, a well-known inducer of nonspecific airway inflammation, may have a positive effect on seasonal allergic diseases.
Especially in the most industrialized areas, the atmospheric concentration of some greenhouse gases, mostly nitrogen dioxide (NO2), has substantially decreased when compared with the previous years. In the same period, we are facing the usual raise in the concentrations of outdoor aeroallergens such as seasonal pollens.
However, the expected benefits of improved outdoor air quality on the aggravation of allergic disorders may also be linked to other phenomena that should be separately analysed. First, a near-universal face masking policy has been implemented in the vast majority of the countries since the beginning of the pandemic. Although primarily worn to protect themselves and others from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 transmission, masks are also able to reduce the airway exposure to inhaled aeroallergens depending on the presence and on the type of a filter.
Second, the urgent need for social distancing has prompted most of the world’s population to be confined at home. Indoor air can also be full of several biological aeroallergens (such as those derived from moulds or domestic pets) and chemical toxicants (tobacco, cooking smoke, or cleaning products, which, ironically, are being used more often to achieve environmental sanitization).
When inhaled, such molecules have also been shown to worsen inflammatory conditions such as asthma or allergic rhinitis. Therefore, the important changes not only in outdoor air quality and pollution but also in our current forcefully indoor lifestyle may yield contradictory effects on the allergic population.
To conclude, while the virus may have a tremendous negative impact on numerous areas, it has also saved many lives. Be it from road accidents, suicides, avoiding unnecessary surgeries, eating good or even respiratory diseases. Like every coin has two sides, there is a silver lining to the pandemic too.
Get thought-provoking articles free in your email from the best intraday tips provider and make money like professional traders in the market.
If you have want to trade options then none can beat our Bank Nifty option tips which deliver profit with in hours itself and you need not work for the whole day.
You
should Trade Less But Trade Accurately & this is Achieved with our Tip.
