Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 1: A team of scientists have sought to puncture holes in the central government’s claims that the current upsurge in the Covid-19 cases in India was sudden and unexpected. They have pointed out that a forum of scientific advisers set up by the government had cautioned it in early March of the country being hit by a “new and more contagious variant” but the government “ignored” the warnings.
Instead of taking necessary precautionary measures including imposing major restrictions to stop social gatherings to stop the spread of virus, it undertook such programmes that more encouraged mass gatherings. Millions of largely unmasked people attended religious festivals and political rallies that were held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leaders of the ruling BJP as well as the opposition politicians.
Tens of thousands of farmers continued to camp on the edge of New Delhi protesting Modi’s agricultural policy changes, while more than 90 lakhs pilgrims participated in Mahakumbha Mela n Haridwar and took holy dip in the Ganges during the month of April.
Some forum members told the media that despite the warning, the central government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. Instead it allowed holding of elections in four states and a union territory going through March and April, did not advice the states to stop organizing elections to the local self-government bodies in various states and did not direct the Uttarakhand government to restrict gatherings in the Mahakumbh.
The world’s second-most populous country is now struggling to contain a second wave of infections much more severe than its first last year, which some scientists say is being accelerated by the new variant and another variant first detected in Britain. India reported over 4.01 lakh new cases on Saturday, a global record.
The warning about the new variant in early March was issued by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium, or INSACOG. It was conveyed to a top official who reports directly to the prime minister, according to one of the scientists, the director of a research centre in northern India. It could not be determined whether the INSACOG findings were passed on to Modi in time or not.
NSACOG was set up as a forum of scientific advisers by the government in late December specifically to detect genomic variants of the Coronavirus that might threaten public health. INSACOG brings together 10 national laboratories capable of studying virus variants.
INSACOG researchers first detected B.1.617, which is now known as the Indian variant of the virus, as early as February, Ajay Parida, director of the state-run Institute of Life Sciences and a member of INSACOG, told the media.
INSACOG shared its findings with the health ministry’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) before March 10, warning that infections could quickly increase in parts of the country. The findings were then passed on to the Indian health ministry.
Around that date, INSACOG began to prepare a draft media statement for the health ministry. A version of that draft set out the forum’s findings: the new Indian variant had two significant mutations to the portion of the virus that attaches to human cells, and it had been traced in 15 percent to 20 percent of samples from Maharashtra, India’s worst-affected state.
The draft statement said that the mutations, called E484Q and L452R, were of “high concern.” It said “there is data of E484Q mutant viruses escaping highly neutralising antibodies in cultures, and there is data that L452R mutation was responsible for both increased transmissibility and immune escape.” This meant that the mutated versions of the virus could more easily enter a human cell and counter a person’s immune response to it.
The ministry made the findings public about two weeks later, on March 24, when it issued a statement to the media that did not include the words “high concern.” The statement said only that more problematic variants required following measures already underway – increased testing and quarantine. Testing has since nearly doubled to 1.9 million tests a day.
Asked why the government did not respond more forcefully to the findings by restricting large gatherings, a senior member of the scientific advisory group said he was concerned that authorities were not paying enough attention to the evidence as they set policy.
“Policy has to be based on evidence and not the other way around,” he said. “I am worried that science was not taken into account to drive policy. But I know where my jurisdiction stops. As scientists we provide the evidence, policymaking is the job of the government.”
The researcher said the draft media release was sent to the most senior bureaucrat in the country, Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, who reports directly to the prime minister. But the government took no steps to prevent gatherings that might hasten the spread of the new variant, as new infections quadrupled by April 1 from a month earlier.
Modi, some of his top lieutenants, and dozens of other politicians, including opposition figures, held rallies across the country for local elections throughout March and into April.
The government also allowed the weeks-long Kumbh Mela religious festival, attended by millions of Hindus, to proceed from mid-March. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of farmers were allowed to remain camped on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi to protest against new agriculture laws.
To be sure, some scientists say the surge was much larger than expected and the setback cannot be pinned on political leadership alone. “There is no point blaming the government,” another scientist said. INSACOG reports to the National Centre for Disease Control in New Delhi. NCDC director Sujeet Kumar Singh recently told a private online gathering that strict lockdown measures had been needed in early April.
“The exact time, as per our thinking, was 15 days before,” Singh said in the April 19 meeting, referring to the need for stricter lockdown measures. “It was highlighted very, very clearly that unless drastic measures are taken now, it will be too late to prevent the mortality which we are going to see,” said Singh, referring to a meeting which took place on April 18. He did not identify which government officials were in the meeting or describe their seniority.
Singh said some government officials in the meeting worried that mid-sized towns could see law and order problems as essential medical supplies like oxygen ran out, a scenario that has already begun to play out in parts of India.
The need for urgent action was also expressed the week before by the National Task Force for Covid-19, a group of 21 experts and government officials set up last April to provide scientific and technical guidance to the health ministry on the pandemic. It is chaired by V.K. Paul, Modi’s top adviser. The group had a discussion on April 15 and “unanimously agreed that the situation is serious and that we should not hesitate in imposing lockdowns,” said one scientist who took part.
Two days after Singh’s April 18 warning to government officials, Modi addressed the nation on April 20, arguing against lockdowns. He said a lockdown should be the last resort in fighting the virus. India’s two-month-long national lockdown a year ago put millions out of work and devastated the economy.
“We have to save the country from lockdowns. I would also request the states to use lockdowns as the last option,” Modi said. “We have to try our best to avoid lockdowns and focus on micro-containment zones,” he said, referring to small, localised lockdowns imposed by authorities to control outbreaks.
“We are in a very grave situation,” another researcher commented. “People listen to politicians more than scientists.” A top boss of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, which is part of INSACOG, pointing out that the country’s scientific community was dejected, lamented, “We could have done better, our science could have been given more significance. What we observed in whatever little way, that should have been used better.”