gui2de’s Response to COVID-19
March/April 2020
Publications
Op-Ed
Troughs and crests in the pandemic response
The novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the disease COVID-19, has proven the ultimate stress test for governance systems globally. And 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…
By Irfan Nooruddin – April 25, 2020
Policy Paper
Smart Containment with Active Learning: A Proposal for a Data-Responsive and Graded Response to COVID-19
“This multidisciplinary proposal draws on the expertise and experience of researchers and practitioners in public health, infectious diseases, epidemiology, economics, policy and public management, technology and data science as well as business & non-profit leaders. Elements of this proposal are being tested in various places – including Pakistan – where several members of the team have been actively supporting the state’s response efforts at national and sub-national levels. The proposal is intended as a living document that will be updated as more information becomes available.”
With Jishnu Das – April 16, 2020
Op-Ed
India’s Response to Coronavirus Can’t Be Based on Existing Epidemiological Models
Lack of accurate models to gauge Covid-19 spread should not become an excuse for policy paralysis. There exists a framework to make policy decisions under uncertainty
By Jishnu Das – April 6, 2020
Media
Podcast
Inside the world’s biggest lockdown: Today Explained
Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered 1.4 billion Indians to stay home. The world had never seen anything like it.
With Irfan Nooruddin – April 28, 2020
Podcast
Episode 39 | Part 2: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact of the lockdown on Tuberculosis Care
In episode 39, part 2 of ThoughtSpace, co-hosts Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, and Dr Jishnu Das, Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR, speak with Dr Madhukar Pai, Professor and Director of McGill Global Health Programs and International TB Centre; Nandita Venkatesan, a journalist, TB survivor and TB disability advocate; and Dr Sarthak Rastogi, consultant pulmonologist at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai. In part 2, we continue the conversation with them to look at what the government needs to do immediately during the lockdown and once it is lifted to help patients who are already on treatment and ensure that new patients continue to get diagnosed and treated.
With Jishnu Das – April 27, 2020
Podcast
Episode 39 | Part 1: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact of the lockdown on Tuberculosis Care
In part 1 of the seventh episode of the CPR ThoughtSpace series on coronavirus, our guests talk to us about how access to medication and new diagnoses of TB patients have come to a near halt because of the coronavirus lockdown. They highlight that India has the highest TB burden in the world with over 1,000 deaths every day, even without COVID-19.
With Jishnu Das – April 27, 2020
Video
Is Donald Trump’s COVID Strategy Misfiring And Hurting US’ Cause? | News Today With Rajdeep Sardesai
In such a crucial time as the whole world is battling with COVID-19 pandemic, The President of US, Donald Trump in a bizarre comment on injecting disinfectant to treat COVID-19 got himself criticized and got slammed by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton several others. Later, Trump claimed that he was being sarcastic.
With Irfan Nooruddin – April 25, 2020
Podcast
Episode 37: The Coronavirus Pandemic: A Global Perspective
While India goes into lockdown 2.0 and determines the best strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19, countries across the world have adopted myriad approaches to tackle the outbreak. In this episode, we step away from India to look at what is happening across the world, especially in the United States of America. We also delve deeper into understanding epidemiological models – what is required to build sound models and to what extent can they accurately predict the spread of disease. While the episode does not focus on India, we do probe lessons India can learn from what is happening in other parts of the world.
With Jishnu Das – April 17, 2020
Podcast
Episode 33: The Coronavirus Pandemic: How Prepared is India?
As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian government responded to the threat by imposing an unprecedented 21-day lockdown. The lockdown’s stated objective is to buy time to slow the spread of the disease and ‘flatten the curve’, a phrase that everyone is all too familiar with now. But what does flatten the curve mean for India? Is a complete lockdown the ideal way to go about it? And how can our already strained health systems prepare for a widespread outbreak, if we do experience one in the coming weeks?
With Jishnu Das – March 30, 2020