Vulnerable states worst hit by Covid-19 -Districts that have traditionally lagged behind in terms of health infrastructure investment, population density control and hygiene facilities have borne the brunt of the pandemic

The Editorial Board   |  TT   |  22.07.20,  :  An evolving problem requires innovative, thorough and timely solutions. This would seem to be one of the major findings from the state vulnerability index computed by researchers at the India office of the Population Council that ranked Indian states in terms of the gaps in their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The importance of such a detailed index for a large, populous and diverse country like India cannot be overemphasized. The variations in geography, population concentration, socio-economic disparities and resource distribution pose a serious challenge in battling the contagion. Precise information at the ground level — fundamental to the formulation of effective policy — could be one way of containing the spread.

Significantly, the index, which takes into account multiple factors that might affect strategies of containment, seems to reflect a telling consistency between the existing health challenges in India and the vulnerabilities of states concerning Covid-19. For example, districts that have traditionally lagged behind in terms of health infrastructure investment, population density control and hygiene facilities have borne the brunt of the pandemic: six of 10 such districts are in Bihar, with the other four being in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand — states not exactly known for robust health networks. Contrastingly, eight of the top 10 least vulnerable districts are in states with relatively sparse populations: Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. These findings establish the relationship between skewed population and health infrastructure and the uneven spike in Covid-19. More important, they serve to highlight the urgent need for allocating health resources keeping these cleavages in mind. There have been some surprises too. Maharashtra, perceived to have ‘superior’ health facilities, has a poorer healthcare score on the index than that of Bengal. This only goes to show that the rhetoric of health infrastructure remains urban-centric; rural health facilities must be modernized to lessen the load on urban hospitals. But data would be of little use unless they are acted upon prudently. It has been alleged that officials in the Union health ministry had prevented the public announcement of the names of 36 districts where evidence of community transmission had been found in April. Of what use, then, is such detailed research in the face of the State’s — deliberate? — disinterest in acting on it?