From the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, South Asia was a less affected area as compared to Europe and the USA. Something called herd immunity was being discussed as the core reason for the stronger immune system of the people of Pakistan and India, meaning thereby that our over-exposure to germs and unhealthy conditions made our immune system ready for any viral or bacterial attack. Health officials were considering that a blessing in disguise because the health infrastructure of India and Pakistan were not capable of dealing with any massive outbreak.
Especially India, being enormously populous and not having an ideal health infrastructure, could have experienced massive death tolls if the pandemic was not contained and restricted properly.
Precaution was considered the sole key to lock the havoc of the pandemic. Due to the high poverty rate, all businesses could not be shut down, which was why Pakistan introduced partial or smart lockdowns. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) were made and implemented. However having similar economic and social conditions India introduced a biased lockdown. Lockdowns for all opposition activities, and recess for all those who are in favour of the BJP government.
Let me recall for you the first-ever documented epidemic of history. Justinian, I is often credited as the most influential Byzantine emperor, but his reign also coincided with one of the first well-documented outbreaks of plague. The pandemic is believed to have originated in Africa and then spread to Europe through infected rats on merchant ships. It reached the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 541 AD and was soon claiming up to 10,000 lives a day—so many that unburied bodies were eventually stacked inside buildings or left in the open.
That havoc triggered the idea of segregation of scourge from the healthy population. Areas were designated far outside of habitats and dead as well those alive but near to death were dumped there. No humanists or the civil rights activists of the time considered that inappropriate. Health officials wearing pointed masks had full authority to drag anybody suspected of sickness, and transport him or her to the dumping site.
History was repeated in 1347, when a virulent strain of plague invaded Europe from the East, most likely via Italian sailors returning home from Crimea. This “Black Death” would eventually spend half a decade tearing across the continent. The similar practice of isolating the sick from healthy by dumping was repeated, until 1377 when the idea of isolation and humanity intertwined in the form of the Quarantine.
The dead were being buried in separate cemeteries, and the alive and sick were put into a livable quarantine arrangement.
The point to be considered here is quarantine arrangements. For developing economies, it could be a scary challenge. Setting up entire new facilities equipped to care foor and cure the pandemic affected is a costly project, which is why all developing countries are trying to avoid that situation by the implementation of base-level SOPs such as restraining social gathering, closing all venues that could possible hamper social distancing, shutting down school and colleges, allowing the work from home option, and so on.
