A single strand RNA impacts global DNA

Abstract

An editorial in the recent edition of The Lancet (April 25th 2020), was a focussed review on India’s lockdown during the pandemic. (1) While the editorial gave only back-handed credit to Indian performance, the world’s largest lockdown, it did not give a balanced comment on India’s accomplishment.  The initial lapses of migrant labourers issue were played up along with several other inconsistencies noticeable in the review.  In order to present a more balanced critique of India’s accomplishment, we herein compare the status of the response to the pandemic among the nations that had first exposure to the virus in January 2020, serving as a comparison among the first cohort of countries.

India is one of the countries to have recorded the first case of COVID-19 in January 2020 and hence, is among the nations, most vulnerable to coronavirus epidemic.  It was quick to close the international borders and enforce lockdown early. These and other actions have been lauded by WHO. (2)