A Collective story and fightback: 3 years since India detected its first Covid patient.

The first Covid-19 patient was confirmed in India on January 30, 2020. In the last three years, India saw nationwide lockdowns, mass exodus from cities and a devastating Delta wave. What stood out amid all the gloom were acts of kindness by absolute strangers and the successful vaccination drive. Here’s the story of India’s Covid fightback.

It is a story of hope and fightback. It is exactly three years ago that India saw its first Covid-19 patient. Since then, from lockdowns to an urban exodus, from trying out new medicines to developing vaccines, it has been an eventful three years. No one went unscathed as the pandemic upturned lives. Livelihoods were lost, but Good Samaritans stepped in with food and oxygen cylinders. If there were mass cremations, there was a successful nationwide vaccination drive too. On this third anniversary of sorts, here’s a rewind and what to expect in the year ahead in a post-Covid world.

India’s First Patient

The novel coronavirus was first identified after an outbreak in China’s Wuhan in December 2019, but it wasn’t till January 2020 that the world took note of the impending danger. India’s first reaction to the pandemic came in the form of a travel advisory on January 17. Its confirmed as India’s Patient Zero on January 30 in Kerala’s Thrissur. She was discharged from hospital on February 20, 2020, after she tested negative. But India’s first Covid patient tested positive again in July 2020.

India’s First Response

India issued a travel advisory on January 15 against travel to China and started screening inbound passengers from China and Hong Kong on January 19 Universal, screening of all International Flights started on March 5, and from March 23, India suspended all inbound international flights.