The WHO it’s being said has lauded India for keeping the numbers low. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to address the nation once again later Tuesday evening. By then the streets of Delhi, Maharashtra and Punjab were deserted. All three states are under curfew.

Meanwhile, people in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, are complaining. The police in Gujarat are behaving very rudely. Beating up people out to procure essentials. Coronavirus does not mean hunger wouldn’t assail; thirst wouldn’t torture. But the Gujarat Police are acting like they are the Gestapo!

The reality is for much of recent time, Gujarat has been behaving as if there is no coronavirus outbreak. School managements have been threatening action against parents who did not want to send children to school.

What’s happening, why such intolerance. It’s in line with the behaviour of certain parents who are refusing to quarantine their children who are returning corona positive from trips abroad. The rise in coronavirus infection cases in India so far has been because of such behaviour.

The Kanika Kapur Syndrome, they call it. Poor Dushyant Singh, BJP Member of Parliament. His royal blue blood has turned into a corona soup thanks to ‘Baby Doll Main Sonedi’, the Kanika Kapur number that’s as dangerously infectious as the coronavirus. Good that the Uttar Pradesh Police has lodged an FIR against ‘Baby Doll’.

But it’s Derek O’Brien who cuts a tragic and sorry figure. How would he have known of Dushyant Singh’s tryst with Kanika? O’Brien spent two-and-a-half hours dining with Dushyant and is now in “self-imposed isolation”, hopefully not with corona coursing through his TMC blood. Mamata Didi must be horrified. What Baby Doll?

India’s corona experience so far has been linked to the Kanika sort, people who returned from sorties abroad carrying the virus in them and then going rogue when told they were coronavirus positive and a clear and present threat to society and country.

Kanika should be tried and jailed, but not before she is cured of corona. It would be a disservice to jailbirds if Kanika lands behind bars still carrying the virus. And she’s not alone in her recklessness. There’s the Kasarkode dimwit who went on a cross-Kerala hoopla to spread the virus to as many innocents as he could.

From home to mosque to railway station to crowded bus to jam-packed diner, the ‘Kasarkode Spreader’ was all over. The police are still trying to find out how many people he must have had close contact with. Definitely in the hundreds who in turn must have had rendezvous with thousands.

That’s the problem with coronavirus. It’s too damn contagious. The ICMR says social distancing if adhered to strictly will reduce the virus’s effectiveness to infect by 62%. But we know that’s all bull. So-called experts who sit in cloistered settings and construct mathematical models to tell us how the coronavirus will behave!

Hell! It’s a waste of time and resources. Everybody knows the real problem is the lack of testing. Do we have enough testing kits? Why isn’t there an order to carry out community testing across India? Private sector labs have been coopted to help, but do private sector labs have enough number of testing kits?

Nobody knows. The number of coronavirus positive cases in Maharashtra have crossed 100. Maharashtra tops in India. Kerala is close number two. The majority of the infected in both states are people who were infected by people who flew in from abroad. Will lockdown and curfew help stem the spread of the virus unless and until the transmission from abroad isn’t halted?

And while the government is not ready to admit a community spread of the virus, common people have now gone beyond the virus. With curfew and lockdown, they are more worried about food and medicines. Other essentials. The food supply chain would soon be in a shambles. People want to hoard but are afraid to stock up. There could be unpleasant repercussions.

Chennai went into complete lockdown March 24 morning. Delhi is under curfew. Loiterers are being hauled up and treated most harshly. The Delhi Police, it seems, have got their orders. Drum, -beat - some discipline into aira-ghaira people. The lives of top leaders of India are at stake. They have no place to run from Delhi. Nobody has. (IPA Service)