COVID-19

Between 2020 and 2022, China imposed a rigorous zero-Covid policy to control its spread and keep the infections and fatalities at or near zero. Stringent lockdowns, frequent PCR tests, and strict restrictions on entry into China were important features of this policy. Although extremely successful during the first two years of the pandemic in preventing the spread of deadly COVID-19 variants such as the Delta, the policy proved ineffective against the Omicron variant. This article examines China’s response to the spread of COVID-19, the framing of this response through nationalist narratives, and the eventual chaotic pivot from zero-Covid policy.

The efforts to develop a public health cadre have not seen much progress in most of the Indian states, despite the recommendations of several committees appointed by the union government, and the 2022 guidelines issued for establishing them. This paper, by drawing on the views of experts in the field, examines the epistemic, structural, systemic, and administrative barriers to the establishment of such a cadre in the south Indian states. It notes that the dominance and perpetuation of biomedical view of health, poor understanding of what public health is, privatisation of healthcare, the vested interests of clinicians, consultancy firms, international funding institutions and the existing hierarchies and binaries within the system, act as major barriers to the establishment of the cadre. The paper suggests that the proposed public health management cadre needs a critical revisit in light of these impediments and concerns.

This article uses a newly compiled transaction-level data set on 2 million-plus ration purchases made by interstate migrants to study the One Nation, One Ration Card scheme. The analysis suggests that despite gaining momentum, the initiative may still have some distance to cover. Interstate transactions remain small compared to intra-state sales. Success in implementing and benefiting from the scheme is highly skewed.

The slump and recovery in growth varied substantially and adversely affected disparate states.