Coronavirus is air-born – did India miss the black-and-white effect of air pollution, lockdown might have favoured the virus!

Will Modi finally accept that he lost the Mahabharat war against coronavirus and now he must go after Ramayan and ask people of India to pray to Hanuman, son of Vayu (air) along with the use of several grandmas’ kitchen based healing recipes of ancient India due to the recent revelation that coronavirus is air born.

The recent report on novel coronavirus is air borne by a group of scientists from US and further asking the WHO to revise its guidelines has come as rude shock than a new piece of scientific information to contain the viral pandemic. 

It is already known that air pollution will always increase the burden of respiratory predisposition and respiratory illness among people.  Therefore most of the respiratory illnesses are relatively high in urban and city dwelling places than in the country side or villages. 

From the above premise, we must look at novel coronavirus pandemic and must ask certain ‘India specific’ questions.  Sometime such an analysis or questions may land us in an unconventional zone of science but we must not shy to ask such questions however unscientific such questions may be because only through an evolution linked analysis of the new virus we can develop some meaningful fodder to deal the pandemic, at least in future days.  Otherwise we may continue with the ‘cut and paste’ approach of US or EU countries which in all likelihood may not work in India.

When people live in areas where the air quality is poor, burden of various pollutants are high, naturally people living in such areas are at greater risk of catching up respiratory illness and flu virus.   From such perspective, people in all our mega cities are at greater risk of developing COVID 19 than in villages.  This is science however further proof is necessary to authenticate. 

But an equally harder science is about the survival of viruses in general in polluted air and the air with varying degrees of humidity and temperature.  It is already proven that the survival of viruses in polluted air and air with varying degrees of humidity and temperature is relatively poor. 

No one can deny that India is a highly polluted country and the air quality in our state capital - Delhi is the best example.  Imagine if the air pollutants and other quality aspects of air are going to limit the survival of novel coronavirus considering the recent scientific revelation of novel coronavirus is air borne, have we not favoured the viral survival in our air by forcing nation wise lockdown? 

When people are already burdened by the poor air quality and are at higher risk of developing respiratory illness due to respiratory preponderances, have we not increased the invasion possibility of the virus among people by improving the quality of air by forcing nationwide lockdown?  The question may sound unscientific but nothing unscientific if such possibility is true. 

The point debate is not to support increased pollution burden in air or we should not do anything to contain pollution load in the air.   The above question is only to indicate the possibility air pollution and other aspects limiting the viral survival in the air in India which perhaps we would have lost by imposing lockdown too stringent and too early.   Even if the survival rate of the virus in the air is halved by the air pollution, still we would have achieved great success in limiting the pandemic. 

Another evolutionary possibility also we need to account for the relatively poor survival of the virus in polluted air.  The virus is named as ‘novel’ and hypothesised to have skipped from Pangolin or bat.  Both these animals live in areas which is hard for human habitation.   When the virus jumps out from its natural host and entered into the human host, naturally that would have happened only through direct contact or via air.  Imagine if the air quality were bad, the virus may not have differentiated its natural host and man and hence would have gone silent.  

Any pathogen become deadly pathogenic only when its survival is threatened, has limited scope to find another host etc.

But by lockdown we might have increased the air quality and also would have increased the survival chance of the virus in the air and hence during and post lockdown, there is an eternal surge in viral positivity.  Although strong scientific and experimental evidence may be required for the above possibility, but the above possibility cannot be dismissed totally if we consider the behaviour of the seasonal flu / influenza viruses in general. 

Infectivity and susceptibility alone should not be consideration for our strategy to contain the pandemic, but we also must include the ‘via-media’ of viral transmission and how that might favour or limit the spread of the virus if we intervene intentionally and or un-intentionally.  

Another evolutionary aspect is that air-borne pathogens have great advantage of spreading across the hosts when compared to water born or blood borne pathogens.  Whenever a pathogen has great advantage of spreading across the hosts, the evolution also would limit such pathogen from causing great infection, because the virus has high transmission scope and hence its dependency on any given host is relatively facultative and not obligatory.   Only when the dependency of the host is high for any pathogen, the loss of host or progressive erosion of the host would happen. 

The question is did India rushed too early and did too much to show its supremacy over the virus and failed miserably?  Certainly the answer is yes. 

Modi may want to prove he is a decisive leader to the world but did not realize that the novel coronavirus doesn’t care about Modi’s emotional rhetoric or Hindutwa agenda and promotion of faith based obscurantism – kitchen healing recipes. 

The virus would have then changed its style of operation by realizing the fact that the economic destruction and loss of livelihood of people by Modi’s senseless lockdown will anyway support the virus because the panic people, people with high restlessness and poverty would make people to dare lockdown and the virus would get a greater chance to conquer human kingdom in India, thanks to Modi, the supreme leader.  Air born spread during lockdown also we cannot dismiss.

Can India ever prevent the spread of an air borne or water borne pathogen so easily and that too by imposing lockdown?  If we had allowed people to interact with virus freely from the beginning, by now India would have got rid of the virus or the virus would have been yet another pathogen preferred to live along with those already prevalent in India. 

The clinical idiosyncrasy seen among many of those positive for the virus (asymptomatic and mild symptomatic) clearly support that the virus would have gone calm and benign if we have made less hue and cry over the pandemic and have not adopted the American or European hysteria over the virus.    

India has gone psychic in dealing the virus purely due to the political aggrandizement of Modi to prove that he is great and supreme and even virus has to bow down to him.  But the virus has broken his ego and soon people of India too will reject him for the economic devastation that he has caused to India by way of demonetization, horribly implemented GST and now the recent senseless lockdown. 

To keep the virus busy and ensure its employment scope, Modi might have imposed lockdown and the lockdown has killed the life and livelihood of millions, people lost their job, employment opportunity, suffered salary cut but Modi wants to offer free wheat and rice as balm to millennial who suffer from perennial hopelessness. 

Will Modi invoke Ramayan and tell people to pray to Hanuman, the son of Vayu (air) to save people from the air born coronavirus?

How long people are going to get carried away by the emotional rhetoric of Modi and would realize that the economy of our country and their bank balance are more important than Hindutwa or the one India rhetoric.