Impact of COVID on Low Income Groups in India

By Ishleen Bami (PGP-19-195)

The definition of Pandemic given by WHO is “a worldwide spread of a new disease”.[1] It’s
ironic we often use the phrase “it’s a small world”, but it all comes into perspective when we
actually feel the impact of something so small (that we can’t even see), on a world that is
infact so large. A fight between the microscopic world with the macroscopic one facing the
brunt on such a large scale is not a common occurrence in one’s lifetime. However, there are
uncanny instances of its cyclicity that have prodded us to probe further. Though influenza
epidemics are notorious for its sinusoidal reoccurrences throughout the year [2], pandemics
have been seen an anomaly to the flu season, lasting for much longer periods of time. The
longer they stay, conditions and factors affecting human lives worsen and more are the
negative impacts.
Past writes the prologue for present and pandemics are an example for this. Some of the
recent pandemics in the past century have been learning curves and benchmarks for COVID
and we are using them as examples to fight the unknown. Recent pandemics like 1918 H1N1
pandemic, 1957 H2N2 pandemic, 1968 H3N3 pandemic and 2009 H1N1 pdm09 pandemic
have something to teach us and to be careful about. By far COVID is one of the least
deadliest pandemic viruses but it does not mean that its effects are any less severe.
Comparing with the H1N1 1918 flu (popularly known as the Spanish Flu), we can pan out the
similarities and differences in circumstances and effects during the two pandemics and
extrapolate the learnings from 1918 to the current scenario.
The global scale of both the pandemics are of similar magnitude and both qualify for being
called the traveller’s disease. While Spanish Flu spread through the sea route, this time
around, the airports were a hotbed of the virus. The spread of this disease affected the people
who travelled the countries, contracted it and when the lockdown began, got it back to their
hometown. We can safely assume that a major percentage of COVID carriers were the people
who could afford international travel and in subsequent instances passed it on to the bottom
of the pyramid – essentially the helpers in their homes. Of course, hospital workers who are
the front facing warriors to this are another part of the population and the government can
take steps to provide proper gear to minimize the threat to them and their families.
Once someone contract the virus, the most vulnerable are the family members of the carrier.
With low income groups living in cramped up environments and spaces, the apparent threat
intensifies and chances of further spread magnify manifold. The virus spreads at an alarming
rate owning to the close proximity and lack of resources.
During the Spanish flu, many studies found a strong correlation between morbidity and
persons living per room.[4] Keeping this in mind, turning our focus to the slums in India paints
a very gloomy picture in our minds about the potential ramifications in case the virus
traverses the slums unchecked. The challenge is not only to check the spread of disease, the
prevention is as crucial and important. If awareness about the Do’s and Don’ts is not divulged
timely, misinformation and chances of graver consequences pose a huge threat to life of the
low income groups.
With over 9% of the Indian population living in slums and 9 millions of tose in the slums in
Mumbai we can conclude that the impact to these lives would be far worse than the well to do
sections of the society who can safely practice social distancing. My Sitara lives in one such
slum in Mumbai. Having been to her house around 10 times in the past year, I still have to
wait for her outside in the marketplace to take me to her house as it is too internal and I
always get lost in the crowded, cramped overpopulated places. A family of 6 living in 1
room, sharing washroom with 6 other families with as many or more people, having to stand
in long queues to fetch water – it is nearly impossible for them to practice social distancing
despite the current scenario. The but their ration every 3-4 days as and when her father earns
meagre amount from his shop. With India on lockdown for the past 45 days, it has made their
lives a living fight to not starve. Threat of starvation in slums is as huge as threat of the virus,
Luckily her mother took her and her sisters to Ahmedabad to their maternal grandmother
where they are safer. However her father is still stuck in Mumbai and the psychologic weight
of stress is really high on her. Basic necessities not being available, lack of food, not enough
means to practice social distancing and India not having enough kits to test these high-risk
high population areas are some of the many factors that are negatively affecting the low
income groups of the society.
Another huge issue doing the rounds is of misinformation and fake news. WhatsApp being a
free platform to reach large audiences and the snowball effect of spreading fake news makes
it a very dangerous tool in the low income strata, especially when illiteracy levels are very
high. I taught Aliya to not believe every word coming through WhatsApp and believe only
after thorough fact checks with reliable news sources. She sends me fake WhatsApp forwards
and I usually bust some new myths for her. Misinformation can impact wrong decisions
which will in turn dampen the efforts being made by the government to stop the spread.
Unemployment due to COVID will be impacting all sections of the society and has started
already, especially the bottom of the pyramid. Manufacturing is almost nil, labour is not
available and daily age workers cannot find any employment opportunities to feed their
families. Take the example of the workers who walked 100s kilometres from cities to reach
their villages. It’s a shame that during the time where each person has to stay inside to save
themselves, they have to travel and that too by such strenuous means to reach somewhere
they perceive to be safe. When lockdown was announced, 1000s of people came together in
Delhi to move back, without following any precautions. The health hazard that this instance
was, we don’t even know how many took the virus back to their villages where health
facilities are not at par to the cities. The cities are struggling already! Imagine the plight of
the villages in case it reaches there. Everyone is scared and mixing it with the unavailability
of food and health services makes the low income groups even more vulnerable to the
disadvantages faced during these times. Economy is crashing and loss of jobs are affecting
them more because the marginal utility of each rupee for the poor is much higher than that for
the rich. The government should ensure healthcare plans are in place along with ample steps
to ensure employment that will act as a cushion when the economy will kick start again once
this wave passes.
REFERENCES
[1] https://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/pandemic/en/
[2] Bjørnstad, O. and Viboud, C., 2016. Timing and periodicity of influenza epidemics. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 113(46), pp.12899-12901
[3] 2007. 1, Learning from Pandemics Past.
[4] Mamelund, S., 2018. 1918 pandemic morbidity: The first wave hits the poor, the second wave hits the
rich. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, 12(3), pp.307-313
[5] Omori, R., Nakata, Y., Tessmer, H., Suzuki, S. and Shibayama, K., 2015. The determinant of periodicity in
Mycoplasma pneumoniae incidence: an insight from mathematical modelling. Scientific Reports, 5(1)