How bad could it get? America’s ugly election

Helping the aged

Japan

Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour

and Welfare of Japan; World Bank

*Aged 15-64

72

70

68

66

64

62

19

15

2008

Female workforce*

participation rate, 

%

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0

19

15

2008

Number of foreign

workers, 

m

---

The Economist

September 5th 2020 

Asia

43

1

T

he statistics

landed like fists in a one-

two punch. First came the news that In-

dia had counted 78,000 new cases of co-

vid-19 on August 30th alone—more than

any other country has tallied in a single day

since the pandemic began. The next day

came the bill for the two-month lockdown

that the government imposed in late March

at only four hours’ notice. The National

Statistical Office said that India’s output

between April and June was 23.9% lower

than in the same period the year before.

India had never recorded a quarter of

negative growth since it began issuing

such data publicly in 1996. No other big

economy has shrunk so much during the

pandemic. In the same period America’s

gdp

fell by 9.1%. India’s economy had been

stumbling before covid-19. But what had

seemed a dismally low rate of growth in

2019 is now the stuff of fond memory.

In hindsight, India’s government may

have locked down too soon. The country

had detected barely 600 cases of covid-19

by March. The ban on commercial activity

and movement outside of the home was

nearly total for two months. Test-and-trace

programmes worked in some areas, nota-

bly the southern state of Kerala, but nation-

wide they have fallen far short of the stan-

dards set by some East Asian countries.

Hospitals rushed to get ventilators and free

up beds in intensive care, but they were

starting from a woefully low level. India

had 0.7 hospital beds per 1,000 people;

South Korea had more than 16 times as

many. Lacking health care, people resorted

to makeshift remedies. Around 140m peo-

ple were thrown out of work. Millions

trudged on foot to ancestral villages.

The pain was so great that hardly any-

one can stomach the thought of reimpos-

ing strict controls, even though infections

are rising more swiftly than ever. Public

transport is resuming this month. Public

gatherings are to be subject to looser rules.

Eventually schools will reopen. An edict

declares that state and municipal govern-

ments may no longer impose stricter rules

than the central government. Kerala, once

a model for the rest of the country, has been

unable to stop travellers from other Indian

states bringing the virus with them. It is

now counting over 1,000 new cases a day.

The number of Indians dying of the vi-

rus appears to be lower than might be ex-

pected, given the number of infections.

The country’s 3.8m detected cases have led 

D E LH I