Growth negligence: India’s covid-19 failings

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. The killing of Chad's president this week ended a three decade reign of power. Now his son has taken over in what many are calling a couple. Chad's stability matters not least because it's a reliable partner in quelling jihadist violence far beyond its borders. And the squishy filter feeding sea cucumber is prized in China both in foods and in traditional medicines. We look at the very start of a supply chain meeting a team of Sierra Leonean divers working under cover of darkness. But first, India reported a dark new record today. More than 314,000 new COVID infections in a 24 hour period. The largest jump by any country during the pandemic. Harrowing scenes that were predicted long ago, then seemingly avoided are now playing out.

We are definitely overburdened. We are already working at the full.

Capacity, rather double of the capacity. Yesterday, an oxygen leak at a hospital north of Mumbai shut down ventilators for an hour as television cameras rolled. More than 20 COVID patients died. Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains reluctant to enact the kind of economically crippling lockdown he tried early on. In fact, his party has encouraged in person voting that continued today and has cheered on mass gatherings. The rise in case numbers is truly staggering. And it's not clear that the measures only now being undertaken can do much to stop it.

India has had 15 million COVID infections so far. That means it's the second worst country in the world after the United States. And right now, about 40% of all global cases are coming from India as the numbers drop in the US and elsewhere.

Max Rodenbeck is our South Asia Bureau chief and is based in Delhi.

But the thing is that for India, this is thought to be about a 10 to 30 times undercount. There may be as much as 30 times as many people who have Covid and that's because testing is very, very low, particularly outside of big cities in India. So there's a lot of anecdotal evidence of all kinds that, for example, the number of people dying, being buried, is considerably higher than the number of people who are being officially announced as having.

Died of COVID And clearly with that comes some troubling scenes playing out across the country.

Yes, I mean, it really is tragic. There's not a single moment when there is not something really dire happening. Right now we're in the midst of really the kinds of scenes of a pandemic that people were fearing last year but were largely avoided in India at least. Now it's really hit in a quite terrifying way. In Delhi, the capital city, 30% of everyone testing for Covid is proving positive just now. And there's just not enough space, not enough beds, not enough anything in the hospitals.

And when last we spoke about this three weeks ago, the situation was looking perilous. But things have gone very much downhill since then. What happened?

Well, the numbers have just gone rocketing up. We've had nearly 10% growth almost every day in the number of cases. And this wave does seem to be much more infectious. But also there have been lack of attention from the government in a way that's pretty shocking. This government not only allowed the world's biggest religious gathering to go ahead, but actually encouraged people to attend a big, big pilgrimage festival along the Ganges river where as many as 6 million people turned up over the past month to take a dip in the holy river. There was very little social distancing that took place. And this is unquestionably turned into a super spreader event. The government is also the top government has been involved in election campaigns. There are very important state elections in four or five states all across India during the month of April. Virtually the whole cabinet has been hitting the campaign trail and drawing huge crowds to very big rallies for these elections. So with these kinds of events going on, certainly has not helped and has not given a very good example of how people should behave. But it's also the fact that numbers had dropped so much in India that people had begun to assume that the worst was over. There had been a return to almost normal behavior with very little social distancing.

And how much of this has to do with those new variants of the virus?

Well, the truth is that we don't exactly know. There are multiple mutant strains all over the world. And there's also no question that we have more infectious strains that have hit India and There's not only this double mutant, there's now a triple mutant. There are many, many different versions, including versions that have come from Britain, from Brazil, are also present in India. Part of the trouble, though, is that India's own effort to do gene sequencing to understand what the mutations are has been pretty underfunded by the government. It's only quite recently that the government stepped in to help out with research. So. So India has not been pulling its own weight around the world in tracing these kind of changes to the virus and is only beginning to catch up now.

So it sounds as if a lot of what's going on now might be put at the feet of the government in terms of preparedness, in terms of public information allowing gatherings.

That's certainly true. Unfortunately, this government has been unprepared in terms of doing things to the medical infrastructure to increase the oxygen supply. For example, big shortfall. It did put out tenders last October, I mean, already many, many months into the epidemic, to provide little oxygen. Factories in hospitals all over the country, but it's been very slow to move on. Those, very few of those are actually in operation. So hospitals are still relying on bottled oxygen all over the place. That's just one thing. And this really is an embarrassment to the government to have not just failed to foresee a second wave, but to almost ignore that it was happening. Numbers began rising in the beginning of March, and it wasn't really until the middle of April that the government began taking this very, very seriously and took serious steps to do address a lot of these problems in terms of oxygen. It's pulled out all the stops to try and get oxygen to hospitals, including getting the Air Force to hand over some of the oxygen equipment that it uses for fighter jets.

But what about India's vaccine program? How does that figure into the dynamic here?

Well, it started off with a lot of promise and a lot of confidence. It's one of the world's biggest producers. As the program rolled out, it was done very well. The logistics were great, but as time has gone on, it became very clear the government has simply, massively underestimated the amount of vaccine they needed. And as of now, four months into the vaccine program, less than 2% of Indians have had the double dose. The government finally uncorked money to give to private vaccine makers to actually build up their own capacity. It's finally licensed foreign vaccines. The government had blocked the entry of foreign vaccines into India, wanting to promote its own. Instead, the government also, it banned vaccine exports. So. So it's running pretty Far behind and doesn't look like it'll be effective enough to actually do much against this current wave of the pandemic.

But you're describing a growth in cases of 10% a day. I mean, is what's being done now enough to turn around what is exponential growth?

No, not really. A national lockdown could slow things down, but the government tried a big lockdown last year in the first phase, and India imposed a two month national lockdown that successfully slowed the disease but also crushed the economy. And the government just doesn't want to do that again. So what we're seeing is local lockdowns in different cities. In Delhi, where I am now, for example, there's a complete lockdown for this week and that will certainly slow the course. But unfortunately I think it's just moved so fast. And also this wave has moved geographically to different parts of India, so it's penetrated much further into the interior of India. So I'm afraid that this wave, it may pass in places like Delhi, Bombay, main cities, but in the interior of India, we're going to see this wave keep going for several weeks more. And I'm afraid we could be facing 20,000 deaths a day quite soon. This is a tragedy for India, obviously, but it also risks becoming a tragedy for the wider world. With so many people infected with COVID there's just a pool of people who have it, allowing the virus to mutate in many different ways. So India's petri dish for the virus for the rest of the world.

Max, thanks very much for joining us.

Thank you, Jason.

Television stations in Chad interrupted programming on Tuesday for an announcement from uniformed army members. The country's president, they said, had been killed by rebels on the battlefield. Idris Debi had ruled the country for 30 years. Just hours before his death, he'd been elected to a sixth term in office with almost 80% of the vote. Several of the other would be candidates had boycotted the election, alleging violence by security forces against opposition figures and protesters. President Debbie's death left a vacuum within Chad, but also marked a big change beyond it.

Debbie's been a really major figure not just in Chad's politics for a very long time, but for the wider Sahel region.

Kenley Salmon is an Africa correspondent for the Economist.

His government has played a military role in a number of neighbouring countries, but also often being quite repressive at home.

And how is it that President Debbie died?

Well, the full details aren't yet clear, but in announcing his death, the military said that he'd been injured on the front lines fighting against a rebel group called the Front for change in Concord and Chad that had come in from Libya in the north on April 11. And so it seems that in visiting the troops, he became a victim.

And tell me a bit more about him. How is it that he came to be president for all of three decades?

Mr. Debbie came to power after mounting rebellion, in effect a Coup, himself, in 1990, against the country's dictatorial president, Hassan Habrai, at the time. But during the three decades that Mr. Debbie's been in power, he's really not delivered democracy and certainly not much development to Chad either. The country has earned billions of dollars from pumping oil, but despite that, a fifth of its children die before their fifth birthday. And elections have been characterized by crackdowns on opposition and protesters as well as the press. But Mr. Debbie's proved pretty adept at winning friends in the west.

How so? Which friends?

Well, he's formed very strong alliances, above all with France, but also with America, both of whom saw him as a stable ally in the fight against jihadism in Africa. I mean, since 2015, there are jihadists of Boko Haram that have been attacking Chad, across the border from neighboring Nigeria and Niger. And France has had a large military base in Chad, as well as the headquarters of operation Barcan, which is a 5, 100 strong military operation fighting jihadists in the wider Sahel region. At the request of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, chad recently sent 1,200 soldiers to help fight jihadists in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. So Chad's been playing this quite important role in the region in the eyes of the west. After his death, France released a statement saying that France has lost a courageous friend.

And so what of the country's leadership now that he's died?

For now, Mr. Debbie's 37 year old son, Mohammad Idris Debbie, has taken charge. The military spokesperson announced that the government and parliament have been dissolved. Mr. Debbie Jr. Will lead a military council. And all of this is really in breach of the constitution. So many people are calling it effectively a coup d'. Etat. The army said that this council will rule for 18 months until, quote, unquote, free and democratic elections can be held. But many in Chad are concerned that this is a continuation of effectively military rule with little space for civilian opposition leaders and little space for engagement from the population in general.

And what effect do you think that kind of uncertainty will have over the stability that one Chad friends in the west?

The question of stability is, I think, top of many people's minds. Because in addition to the jihadist threats in the wider region, the government's also faced repeated incursions, often in northern Chad, from rebels based in Libya. And in fact, in the past, French warplanes have bombed rebels to help push them back. The latest group of rebels, the Front for Change in Concord and Chad, they've pushed deeper into the country as the army has perhaps struggled to hold them off. The rebels have claimed to kill a number of other senior officers, which could further weaken Chad's ability to respond to the threat. The army, of course, claims to have killed a number of rebels, up to 300 themselves. But despite that, the rebels have recently said that Mr. Debbie's death doesn't mean that they are stopping and instead they're preparing for a final assault on the capital in the coming days.

And what about domestic politics, though, in the meantime, will this new military council have enough support to work?

Well, I think it's important to say that despite winning a number of elections, even Mr. Debbie Sr. Was not necessarily especially popular. Protesters have taken to the streets repeatedly in recent years. In February, there were clashes after Mr. Debbie decided to run for a sixth term. And now opposition leaders are, I think, very unlikely to accept the suspension of the constitution and the handling of powers to Mr. Debbie's son. They had already planned protests about the election results. The next few weeks are going to be pivotal. Some hope there could still be a window for more democracy, or at least real progress toward it. But with rebels still in the country, there's also a genuine risk of conflict. But even if that is avoided, in the short term at least, Chadians look like they will still have to live under a military government that's likely to be repressive.

Kenley, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you.

On a remote beach in southeastern Liberia, a group of divers waits until dark to don wetsuits and breathing tubes.

They are Sierra Leoneans, so they've come from the country just next door down in two wooden canoes, 16 of them in total.

Lucinda Rouse writes for the Economist. She accompanied the divers on one of their nighttime raids of the ocean floor.

And they dive down looking for what is called black gold. It's not oil. It is sea cucumbers. Contrary to what the name might suggest, sea cucumbers are not a vegetable. They're actually a marine creature. They are a member of the starfish family and they are a bit cucumber shaped, as you would probably expect. They're dark brown or black in color. There are many different types of sea cucumber but they are critically important for the marine ecosystem in that they make sure that the PH levels are kept under control and act as filters.

And you referred to them as black gold. Is that to say they're valuable?

Yes, very much so. So not in Liberia, not in West Africa. Where the market is, is China, predominantly, where they are a culinary delicacy. They are also used in Chinese medicine where they're believed to be a strong natural aphrodisiac. Certain varieties can fetch up to about $6,000 per kilo. These ones wouldn't fetch as much as that, but you might be looking at about $500 a kilo. These divers get $1.75 per kilo that they catch, but it's still considered to be sufficiently lucrative.

So a well paid pursuit, as you say. But it sounds like it might be a dangerous one as well.

Certainly they don't have the greatest equipment. Several of their wetsuits are ripped, their flippers are cracked, and they're breathing from this rusty compressor, which I think would be more suitable to blowing up vehicle tires rather than being used to breathe from. And there is a risk of lipoid pneumonia. I used to dive, but actually now I totally stopped diving because Abdullah Mansaray, the leader of these divers, he was diving for several years before he became seriously ill with pneumonia. I was cough, cough, cough, then I feel in my lungs, I cough for.

Long, then I can vomit. When I cough, cough, cough, cough. In the evening I feel fever, I.

Feel high fever, I feel cold. And he was off work for over six months and he said that it really took him a year to regain his strength and he hasn't dived since.

And how does the market for these things actually work? Once they get them on the boat, then what?

There's very little information about how this supply chain works and what the trading channels are. But when the pandemic hit, Liberia was very quick to implement lockdowns, as in many African countries. And that meant that the export route for these sea cucumbers evaporated overnight and along with it the market. And these divers were unable to go home due to the lockdown. And so they were stuck with no means of earning money. They sold their two canoes. Then the individual divers started selling things like their designer trainers, their watches. And in the end, all they were left with were the sea cucumbers that they had already caught and with no way of selling them or getting them out of the country, so they started to eat them.

And so is all of this going to get back to the way that it was. Now that lockdowns are starting to lift?

Well, practically speaking, yes. However, the Liberian government is trying to better regulate the sector. The discovery of these creatures and the fact that they're so expensive in parts of the world and that there's a growing demand for them could be a fantastic opportunity to get revenue flowing into the country and into the fisheries sector. However, there's this huge risk of if too many of these creatures are removed from the waters that could have severe implications for other species living in the waters, other types of fish, particularly those which are caught by local fishermen, so a source of livelihood and also a source of food. So it's a high risk but potentially a high return initiative.

Lucinda, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you very much.

For more deep dives and on the ground analysis from our international network of correspondence. Take out a subscription to the Economist. Get a great introductory deal@emologist.com the link is in the show Notes. See you back here tomorrow.