Plato in his seminal work ‘The Republic’, talks of a cave, where a group of people have been interred, and they deduce an idea of the real world outside by way of the shadows that they see on the wall. A person, who escapes, realises that the world is very different, and when he returns to the cave, his view is opposed and rejected. In a similar vein, a number of conjectures and theories have arisen regarding the pandemic being a plot to facilitate Chinese domination of the world with a view, in particular, to bring down the influence of the US, and this is interpreted from the flickering shadows on the cave walls.

The world is in the fifth month of a spreading contagion, which was first detected in Wuhan, China. A coronavirus (CV), one of about 36, it is thought to have been started due to a spillover infection, the closest being the virus found in the horseshoe bats in Hubei province. In 2007, Prof Vincent C.C. Cheng of the Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, published a paper “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Emerging and Remerging Infection”.

The study was done subsequent to the first coronavirus pandemic, SARS, which struck 30 countries and cost 700 lives. It also said that the coronaviruses jump species from animal to man, undergo genetic recombination, and the presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CV like viruses in horseshoe bats, and the culture to eat them, cannot be ignored, making it a time bomb. It also said that despite the fact that SARS had been quickly brought under control, foolproof infection control systems have gaps.

In the present pandemic, the intermediate host, which permitted the mutation, has not yet been identified. With people affected nearing the million mark, a current case fatality rate of about 4.7 percent, many parts of the world are in a state of lockdown, the recession is on the anvil, and recovery is likely to be a slow painful process.

It has given the opportunity to those with funds to buy controlling shares into companies which are taking a beating, and Australia is reportedly taking measures to stall Chinese interests in its listed strategic assets. Some of the shadows of Sinic domination were interpreted from these factors.

The lessons from China are a revelation. The weakening of the Chinese economy itself has taken a hit. This is evident from the fall of the Shanghai Index from a high of 5178 in 2015 to a high of 3288 in 2019 and a low of 2646 on March 19, 2020, a fall of 49 percent in five years. It is a fact of economics that, if demand exists, then a suitable supply, which implies a readily available and low-cost supply stream, will slake it.

With her factories lighting up, people getting back to work, China, which in many segments had become the factory of the world due to economies of scale, is satisfying that demand through sale or through assistance. China has started to recover, while the rest of the world stutters and talks of recession.

On merit, it has come out stronger for the resilience of its governing system, which was able to recuperate and rejuvenate the economy.

COVID-19 emerged in late 2019 in Wuhan China as believed. No one had medicines, vaccines or knowledge. China, through a process of learning, using sophisticated tracking technology, isolation, testing and treatment by anti-viral drugs, including drug Avigan developed by a Japanese company, was able to contain the contagion. It restarted its factories within about 12-14 weeks, with confinement controls in place. A remarkable achievement, made possible by the quality of strict no-nonsense leadership, administration and sophisticated citizen tracking technology.

It established that, through a process of aggressive quarantine, social distancing, people tracking and tracing, widespread testing and through quickly made available treatment facilities, the epidemic could be contained and controlled.

How did the rest of the world react to the impending storm? As was evident in the months of January and February, it was given short shrift. World leaders likened it to a “flu” which would be easily handled. Surely there were reports by diplomats based out of China, analysis by intelligence communities and, scrutiny and study by responsible medical organisations of the virulence, infectivity, and transmissibility of the disease. Were these ignored, or is it a systemic failure of democratic systems, where such reports are to be discussed threadbare ‘on file’, with their own time penalties, and often deductions are made to suit the powers that be by individuals who speak black-white?

The World Health Organisation (WHO), the organisation made responsible to sound the alarm, hardly raised any anxiety, that there is a grim and sinister pandemic coming within weeks, till it was too late. On January 29, 2020, it put out a statement consequent to an emergency committee meeting regarding COVID-19 in Singapore, that “It is expected that further international exportation of cases may appear in any country. Thus, all countries should be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing and prevention of the onward spread of 2019-nCoV infection.” It cannot be more understated and blander than this.

Even the Brits seemed to have missed it! No talk of aggressive testing, no talk of social distancing, no talk of quarantine of people coming from areas where infection exists. China was already in a lockdown state.  Is the interpretation of shadows a smokescreen to hide our own frailties and failures?

The pandemic is perhaps a precursor to others that will arise, as the human species continues to infringe the boundaries and habitats of other species. Efficient transportation, dense cities, the continuing influx from the villages to urban areas, increasing divide between the rich and the poor, and increasingly slack monitoring systems being driven by policies of civil libertarians, are boosters for their spread.

China achieved a measure of quick control, due to its superb, though intrusive surveillance system. Strong leadership was the other facilitating factor. NRC/AADHAR Number/Mobile number linkage is a starting point for us. Can India put in place CCTV networks with facial recognition technology, linked to our biometrics, at least in cities and towns and for all those who travel abroad? The choice is between privacy and life.

Close international cooperation will remain the key. Unless there are solidarity and harmony amongst the countries of the world, with the better placed taking leadership roles, as was done by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi in starting the ball rolling through a video conference, tackling the pandemics will remain a nightmare. Is it too dystopian to seek a new form of democracy that provides for high-quality governance, protection of life and quick decision making?

The reality outside the cave is that a pandemic of a new disease is spreading across the world caused by a spillover event. The world community reacted tardily and instead of shoring up the defenses, it is now dousing the fires. The world in the future would warrant systems that are more alert to impending pandemics and crises, better prepared and strong leadership. It warrants a brave new world, driven by technology, international cooperation and efficient decision making, not deductions from flickering shadows inside the cave.

(The author is an Indian Navy veteran)