Troughs and crests in the pandemic response (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Governance 
Prelims level: COVID-19
Mains level: Highlights the stages in response to address the pandemic 

Context:

• The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the disease COVID-19, has proven the ultimate stress test for governance systems globally. 
• The governments worldwide are failing, showing up for all to see how poorly prepared they were for this examination. 
• Even those governments that are likely to be rated relatively highly by scholars of public policy studying this moment later will not pass the examination unscathed. 
• Yet, the common challenges faced by all governments to fight COVID-19 must not mask the considerable variation in their performance which holds lessons from which we must learn.

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Stages in the response:

• Disease outbreaks, even global pandemics, are scarcely new. The playbook for dealing with them therefore is well understood and has been honed by practices and lessons gleaned from hard-fought battles. 
• A first stage is early clear-eyed recognition of the incoming threat, and, in the case of COVID-19 at least, requires the unpalatable decision to lock down society. This is a phase aimed at buying time, of flattening the epidemic curve, so that public health facilities are not overwhelmed; and, for using this time, paid for by collective sacrifice, to secure the personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical supplies necessary to save lives. 
• The second phase of the pandemic response is slowly to ease the burden on the economy by permitting a measured return of business activity so that livelihoods and supply chains can be restored. 
• This stage can only be safely executed if accompanied by a war-footing expansion of testing capacity so that new infections can be identified and isolated at once, allowing contact tracing to be implemented by masses trained to do this crucial and painstaking work in communities across the country. 
• The final stage, which for COVID-19 seems a lifetime away, is a mass vaccination programme and then the full rebuilding of economic and social life. 

What drags systems down?

• For all the defensive finger pointing, opportunistic politicking and xenophobic posturing — exemplified best by the peevish current occupant of the White House but hardly unique to him — this is not a crisis that can be tackled without robust and multidimensional international cooperation between nations. 
• From the epidemiologists whose data-driven models inform policy debates about how and when to lift quarantines, to the medical community identifying more effective treatments, to the research scientists racing to find a vaccine, we are watching in real time the benefits of intellectual collaboration that does not stop at national borders. 
• But the nationalistic turn in global politics over the past two decades has reduced investment in and undermined the legitimacy of the very institutions that facilitate international partnership at the very time they are needed most. 
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi did well to convene the leaders of the SAARC nations in mid-March to discuss the possibility of a regional response.
• The video-conference call also highlighted that there have been no summit-level meetings of SAARC since 2014, in no small part due to India-Pakistan jingoism that has victimised the regional organisation. 
• The pandemic response requires a whole-of-government strategy, for which political will and legitimate leadership are vital to convene and maintain. 

Way forward:

• We are seeing first-hand the consequences of starving public health systems of necessary funds and resources. 
• The comparative advantage of the private sector is efficiency; the need of the hour in pandemic response is redundancy, or, more precisely, excess capacity. 
• Most hospitals do not need invasive ventilators normally, just as they do not need vast stocks of PPE and extra intensive care units beds, but these are essential goods right now as we brace ourselves for a flood of sick patients into hospitals. 

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General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1)With reference to the Currency swap agreements, consider the following statements:
1. Currency swap agreements involve trade in local currencies, where countries pay for imports and exports at pre-determined rates of exchange without the involvement of a third country currency. 
2. The swap operations also carry exchange rate or other market risks.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer...............

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Mains Questions:
Q.1) Describe the various stages in government response to deal with the pandemic.