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On March 24, 2020, India’s Prime Minister announced the world’s largest COVID-19 lockdown, bringing to a near-halt the economic and social lives of more than one billion Indian residents. This paper quantifies the economic impacts and behavioral changes induced by this unprecedented policy using two unique data sources: Facebook mobility data and a representative sample of previously surveyed low income Delhi households. Compliance with the lockdown was widespread: intra-city movement declined by 80% following the announcement. The economic consequences have been accordingly severe, with income and days worked falling by 86 and 72% respectively. Nevertheless, observance of public health directives was high: mask usage rose by 73 percentage points and handwashing became nearly universal, while time spent outdoors and smoking both declined. We also show how government-provided social...

In early 2020, the unprecedented nature of COVID-19 prompted India, among many other countries, to put in place stark measures to stem the virus’ spread and the cost of human lives. We analyze data from phone-based surveys on disruptions to agricultural production and food security, administered with 1515 smallholder producers in the states of Haryana and Odisha. We find substantial heterogeneity in how the lockdown affected farmers in these two states, which is likely related to existing structural differences in market infrastructure and to differences in state-specific COVID-related policies. In Odisha, where mechanization is limited, farmers spent more on labor to harvest their crops, and distress selling was more prevalent due to the absence of a well-functioning procurement system for their crops. In Haryana, preexisting market infrastructure allowed the state to sustain...

In the absence of specific treatment, preventive strategies are of paramount importance in management of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemic. We estimated cost-effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions such as hand-hygiene, surgical-mask N-95 respirators and surgical mask in general population. We performed a decision tree and markov-model based economic evaluation. We estimated total costs and outcomes from public payer’s perspective, based on information available through systematic literature search on relative intervention effect during early pandemic phase. We estimated outcomes as number COVID-19 prevented and Quality Adjusted life year (QALY) over one-year time-horizon with one-day cycle-length. Incremental cost effectiveness ratios (ICER) was calculated multiple sensitivity analyses were applied to assess parameter uncertainty. Use of surgical mask with hand...

A pandemic coronavirus infectious disease-2019 (COVID-19) was first originated in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The entire world was locked down along with China to prevent the local transmission and wide geographical spread [1]. On the 30th of January, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 as public health emergency due to the increasing number of cases around the world [2]. The WHO data on 7 May 2020 showed more than 3588700 confirmed and 247500 death cases of COVID-19 around the world [3]. Taking into account the transmission, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19, it is observed that most of the developed countries having advanced healthcare systems along with using their innovative research have been failed to cope with COVID-19. On the other hand, developing countries with their struggling and compromised healthcare system are even failed to record the...

Background:  From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinical practice and research, globally, have centered on prevention of transmission and treatment of the disease. The pandemic has had a huge impact on the global economy and stressed the health care systems worldwide.Methods: The present study estimates Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), Years of Potential Productive Life Lost (YPPLL) and Cost of Productivity Lost (CPL) due to premature mortality and absenteeism, secondary to COVID-19 in Kerala state, India. Details on sociodemography, incidence, death, quarantine, per capita income etc were dervived from various public sources. 5-year age-gender population, working population in each age-gender cohort and corresponding life expectancies were obtained from Census of India 2011. Data on incidence and recovery time were dervied from CODD-K. Details of deaths were...

On March 24, 2020 India implemented a national lockdown to prevent spread of the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among its 1.3 billion people. As the pandemic may disproportionately impact women and girls, this study examines gender differences in knowledge of COVID-19 symptoms and preventive behaviors, as well as the adverse effects of the lockdown among adolescents and young adults. A mobile phone-based survey was implemented from April 3-22, 2020 in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar among respondents randomly selected from an existing cohort study. Respondents answered questions related to demographics, COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes, and preventive behaviors practiced, and impacts on social, economic and health outcomes. Descriptive analyses and linear probability regression models were performed for all participants and separately for men and women. A total of 1,666 adolescents and...

Background Maharashtra is one of the worst affected states in this pandemic.2 As of 30th September, Maharashtra has in total 1.4 million cases with 38,000 deaths. Objective was to study associations of severity of disease and need for ICU treatment in COVID-19 patients. Methods A retrospective study of clinical course in 800 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and a predictive model of need for ICU treatment. Eight hundred consecutive patients admitted with confirmed COVID-19 disease. Results Average age was 41 years, 16% were

Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created an unprecedented loss and disruptions over all across the world. From developed to developing, no country has been spared from its brunt. In this paper, we have analyzed the implications of COVID-19 on the economy and society of India so far. An impact assessment on the basis of available lietrature is made on all the three sectors-primary, secondary and service sector along with the impact on migrants, health, poverty, job losses, informal sector, environment, and so forth. The all sectors of the economy has been disproportionately affected and even within a sector, there is a disproportionate loss. The societal impacts are dire too with job losses, mental illness, increased domestic violence, and so forth. Some positive effects can be seen in terms of improved air quality, water quality, wildlife but the sustainability of such impact is...

India reported its first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on 30th January 2020. The Indian Government declared nationwide lockdown on 25th March 2020, which continued till 31st May 2020 [1]. Thereafter, most of the country was opened with some relaxations except in red zones and containment areas. The lockdown has been essential in building government capacity to test and treat COVID-19 patients and manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE). There have also been public awareness campaigns regarding social distancing, face mask use, hand and respiratory hygiene and judicious use of public places. After the initial panic, the healthcare workers have now equipped themselves with knowledge about diagnosing and treating COVID-19 and proper use of PPE. However, it is clear that the lockdown is not a long-term solution and prolonged curbs to healthcare can have long lasting...