"A 57-year-old man from Ghaziabad with a recent travel history to Iran has become the 30th person to be confirmed positive for Covid-19 in India. Another 23, who initially tested positive, are being reconfirmed." "The health ministry said, in addition to Covid-19 cases related to travel, some cases of community transmission are beginning to be observed, indicating that the virus may be spreading undetected in local communities." Authorities are checking around 80,000 international arrivals at Indian airports everyday. Those with symptoms are sent to hospitals for further tests. In a closed space of an aircraft it is possible that all passengers and crew could have been infected as the infected passenger would have walked around the cabin while finding his seat or going to the toilet. If one passenger tests positive will they put all other passengers and crew in quarantine? If not, they will go home and infect all others they come in contact with. According to doctors in Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, the incubation period is up to 14 days during which the patient is asymptomatic but infectious. A woman in her 40s, a resident of Osaka, Japan, tested positive for the virus a second time on 26 February, having recovered from a first infection and been discharged from hospital on 1 February. Coronaviruses are common pathogens among humans and cause mild upper respiratory symptoms. Sick children with cold, cough and fever requiring admission to hospital are routinely checked for the common coronaviruses by real-time PCR. Liberals have rushed to sneer at 'conspiracy theories' of the virus having escaped from Wuhan Institute of Virology but they do not explain why such a virus has never appeared before when the Chinese diet has remained unchanged for thousands of years. The Chinese government has reacted ruthlessly, locking down entire Hubei province to contain mortality within its population. What do they know that we don't? The virus is said to have come from bats, but bushmeat is also eaten in Africa and is the source of HIV and Ebola. These are not so easily transmitted but the Chinese virus is extremely infectious and but not so virulent. Extreme metamorphosis for a usually harmless pathogen. Isolation and lockdown will be impossible in India if Covid-19 enters the general population. Dharavi slum in Mumbai is one of the most densely populated places on earth with about a million people living there. People from there work as maids, drivers and cooks in the houses of the rich and middle classes. Poor people travel to find work in large cities in overcrowded trains. "Up to 62% (121 million) of employed people in 2011-12 were casual workers, the last available data from the EUS (Employment and Unemployment Survey) show." If there is a lockdown for any length of time these people and their families will starve. India has survived through many invasions, we will survive the Chinese one too. Question is: at what price?
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