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- “Your time will come”, it says on the T-shirt of a helper in the soup kitchen in India (ARD / Silke Diettrich)
Most of the 1.3 billion Indians should not leave their own homes. The fear of the corona virus is great. New York shows how overwhelmed a rich industrial country is. Only in Sweden is it still largely everyday life.
A nationwide curfew will apply for three weeks, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a few days ago. This is the only way to stop the spread of the corona virus. According to Johns Hopkins University, there are currently more than 1000 infected people in India. Experts assume a high number of unreported cases because only little is tested. There is a threat of the virus spreading rapidly across the subcontinent.
The largest democracy in the world under house arrest
The poorest are likely to be hit mainly because they live in slums with poor hygiene and in great physical proximity. Tens of thousands of migrant workers who now have to return from the larger cities to their home villages suffer from the consequences: They have become homeless and unemployed and are now trying to walk hundreds of kilometers home, because there are hardly any transport options.
Anyone who violates the curfew will be severely punished by the police. Countless videos on social networks show it – some filmed by police officers themselves. In one from the north, men are shown squatting and saying, “We are the enemies of our society because we are not sitting at home.” Because anyone who is caught on the street “for no reason” can be sentenced to prison terms of up to two years.The health expert Jha from Harvard fears that 40 percent of people could become infected: 70 million people would then be dependent on hospital care, 20 million would need intensive care. No country in the world could master that.
New York is the corona hotspot in the USA
In the US, more than 140,000 people have now been infected with the corona virus. More than in any other country. For a long time, US President Trump denied the danger and acted hesitantly. Now it hits his hometown hardest. 56 percent of all new infections are found in New York, the director of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, told CNN. A lockdown in the state of New York was rejected by Trump on Twitter: “A quarantine will not be necessary.”
Meanwhile, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is preparing the city for the worst. Tarpaulin emergency hospitals are being eagerly erected to cope with the anticipated onslaught of intensive care patients. There is also a lack of masks, protective clothing, ventilators and medical staff. “Here in New York it literally feels like wartime,” said de Blasio.
Sweden’s special way
In Sweden, children continue to go to school or are allowed to go to playgrounds. The business and nightlife is almost the same as usual. The Scandinavians go a separate way in Europe. While there is advice to work from home more, not to meet older friends and to avoid the crowds, the government has not imposed any contact or curfew.
So far, 3700 people in Sweden have been infected with the corona virus. At seven days, the doubling period is longer than in Central Europe. Sweden is in a stable position, says epidemiologist Anders Tegnell from the Public Health Agency, which creates guidelines for the government. Nevertheless, intensive care beds are currently being retrofitted in Stockholm because the previous capacities are presumably insufficient for the height of the epidemic.
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