Challenges remain, but signs of hope emerge in India

Worst-hit workers

Millions of migrant workers and local daily wage earners are among those worst hit by the lockdown.

They have found themselves trapped in a situation where they can neither find work nor return to their villages. Nearly all the stranded migrant workers nationwide have exhausted their meager savings and are now dependent on community kitchens run by government or nongovernmental organizations.

These migrants comprise about 20 percent of the country's workforce.

Just before the lockdown was enforced, Manas Mondal, 21, lost his job as a guard at an information technology office in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and returned to his village in West Bengal, some 1,900 kilometers away. He said he is scared of going back to Bengaluru, adding, "I will try to do something at home."

For him and many others, the outbreak came as a shock. However, there is hope and the authorities are continuing to take action.

The government has earmarked some 170 virus hotspots based on testing, occurrence of cases and contacts.

Jameel, the virologist, said: "The other obvious places are large cities, especially urban slums. These have the disadvantages of being close to places where the virus was initially imported, and a high population density, making social distancing impractical."

Measures that are needed urgently include isolating cases, speeding up contact tracing, quarantine precautions and using rapid antibody tests in areas with high-density populations, Jameel said, adding, "Urban slums must be top priority."

While West Bengal and Karnataka are focusing on getting food and medicines to the needy and the elderly, the authorities in Odisha are paying special attention to honoring those treating coronavirus patients.

With many cases of infection reported among doctors and other healthcare workers, the Odisha government said, The "corona warriors" who die while treating COVID-19 patients will be treated as martyrs."