Is a lockdown necessary if the virus has already spread? (Chennai, May 4-2020)
I am taking a few minutes to reflect on the experiences from Chennai in the context of a lockdown. The last time I left Chennai was on Feb-28 to Trivandrum. When I landed there, there were people in masks and temperature guns screening people on the basis of their temperatures and their passports. The weekend passed by fairly peacefully and the coronavirus was still not a concern yet in other places.
I returned to Chennai on Mar-2 on AI-968, a flight which came from Sharjah to Trivandrum, and then to Chennai. We disembarked at the International Terminal and there were no checks at all for the coronavirus. All seemed well.
I heard from colleagues at my previous organization that their project mates had flown in from various hotspot countries in March, and had successfully reported to work. The firm requested them to go on self isolation for two weeks, just in case.
The last case I know directly is that of another colleague who flew in from Guwahati to Chennai, a few days before the Janta Curfew. She had observed that there was not much checking and exiting the airport was a breeze.
Time for a wikipedia excerpt - “Chennai International Airport (IATA: MAA, ICAO: VOMM) is an international airport serving the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, and its metropolitan area. It is located in Tirusulam, 21 km (13 mi) from the city centre. The airport handled over 22.5 million passengers in the fiscal year 2018–19, with over 570 aircraft movements and 30,000 passengers per day. Chennai International Airport is the third busiest in international traffic and cargo capacity in the country behind New Delhi and Mumbai.[4][5] It is the fourth busiest airport in country's overall passenger traffic behind New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.”
We know now that the COVID-19 patients may or may not be symptomatic. The asymptomatic patients, I would assume, would be less effective spreaders than a comparable symptomatic patient. They would have gone through all the temperature checks with flying colors.
Coming to the symptomatic patients, the airport would have welcomed 1000s into the city in 2020, till the last week of March. Not everyone stays in the city. Most would travel overland to their native villages/cities after arrival.
Let's just say for argument's sake, all these patients have been flying in to Chennai with or without knowing that they are carrying a bug, freely for 3 months. They in turn would have traveled all over and would have spread the virus far and wide as well. Now, the strange thing is that people should have been dropping like flies by now, but the death counts are low.
The death counts can be low for 2 reasons. 1 – they are actually low, corona or non-corona included. 2 – the numbers are being misreported. The misreporting is difficult to be caught but a large death spike should have been caught by social media at least.
What I am not able to piece together are 2 contradictory statements that I have been leading up to -
1 – There has been ample opportunity and time for the virus to spread in the state. 2 – The death counts are relatively low.
I do not take into account the COVID-19 positive counts in this article as the testing is limited and could be just the tip of an iceberg.
Given all this, I am starting to wonder if a lockdown is even necessary in this city?
(DISCLAIMER – I am not a medical professional or a data scientist. These are speculations.)