Time to adapt the Hong Kong Strategy

The Global pandemic has already disturbed the world's routine. With the lockdown going on in almost every part of the world it is getting difficult for almost everyone to think what the next to come.

The second phase of lockdown in India is getting over in 3 days. Some states decided to extend the lockdown in order to maintain safety. But at the same time, we have to deal with the economy as well as the food crisis which is predicted to come in the future.

The Indian government adopted completed lockdown from China. It was essential because of the dense population and highly social people. The administration believes that the pandemic has made the people more mature and sensible in decision making. The corona fighters are there to accompany in new strategies.

WHAT IS HONG KONG STRATEGY?

At the initial level, the strategy could not be adopted in India. Hong Kong didn't impose complete lockdown in the country. Many people wonder that India cannot follow that, but Hong Kong is also a densely populated country with 7.5 million population, still managed to control the pandemic to some extent in spite of the second wave of infection.

Let's count some major steps taken:

1. People cooperated in practising social distancing in a dutiful manner. Generally, the people here are social, like India. 
2. Contact tracing is actively done as it helped South Korea to recover quickly, now it has worked for Hong Kong and Taiwan.
3. According to the reports, the administration allowed the business to run normally, people should compulsorily wear masks whenever they go in public.
4. When WHO advised that a healthy person need not wear a mask, Hong Kong encouraged people about the importance of social distancing and wearing masks.
5. According to an American report, temperature checks have become routine at the cafes.
6. Large scale testing.

SARS OUTBREAK IN HONG KONG

Hong Kong was the epicentre of the dangerous SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)  which was also a coronavirus. COVID-19 is somewhat similar to SARS but the disease spreading is quite different.

Hong Kong somehow survived because the disease spread through the hospital, the medical officials were checked and the disease was controlled in medical settings. Once the cases reduced in medical settings, the outbreak stopped.

The lessons that were learnt from SARS outbreak helped Hong Kong to fight and contain the coronavirus to a better extent. In the densely populated country, the cases can be restricted to 1038 and 4 deaths, the effort is quite appreciable and a potential model for the other countries for implementation.

If the Indian government can assure better encouragement among the people to follow social distancing, wear masks, conduct serious testing at travelling and transport centres, appropriate restrictions at the public places, and better health facilities then it will be easy to control the economic damage.

We should wait and see whether India acquire the Hong Kong route or not?