The coronavirus tragedy that has befallen the world has shaken up even the economic powerhouses like China and US. While China has had considerable success in isolating and controlling infection– though not without initial setbacks. It finally was able to treat its patients, but western nations are still struggling without much success.
Italy which is one of the highest spenders in health services found its health infrastructure overarched by the magnitude of the Covid-19 infections and has suffered the maximum in terms of deaths due to this highly transmissible disease. The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in a tearful press briefing admitted his country’s surrender to the deadly disease and prayed for divine help to tide over this tragedy.
Spain is another country, which has a highly developed public health services, but that too is finding its health infrastructure achingly strained due to fast growing rate of infections. The lone superpower US is finding itself at wits end in tackling the continuing onslaught of the infections in US. It has drafted the National Guard to impose nationwide lockdown and has asked the military’s help to ramp up production by invoking the provisions of The Defence Production Act to meet the shortage of medical supplies such as ventilators, personal protective equipment and essential medicines.
India was somehow blessed in the sense that when the onslaught of the infections was being faced by China, Italy and US, it had time to brace itself up before the first manifestations of the Covid-19 in India. This provided India with just enough opportunity to learn about the symptoms, device and plan isolation and quarantine measures along with develop symptomatic treatment protocols. The world went into a phased lockdown with restriction on international flights to and from the coronavirus hotspots all over the world.
During this period, India also undertook one of the largest evacuations of its citizens from these hot spots starting from Wuhan, China where this virus first appeared, from Italy, Malaysia and Iran. Most of these evacuation missions were spearheaded by the military. Subsequent management of the evacuees and necessary quarantine was also conducted by the military in its camps at Manesar, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, and Hindon while other quarantine centres were setup and kept ready to meet various contingencies at Suratgarh, Jhansi, Devlali, Kolkata, Chennai and Gorakhpur. Base Hospital Delhi Cantt, Army Research and Referral Hospital Delhi Cantt to name a few. Military has also earmarked rapid response medical teams to be despatched to the SAARC nations to help them overcome the scourge of the coronavirus. Several military hospitals have been earmarked to serve as isolation facilities and critical care units in the event of civilian hospitals overflowing with patients.
As per the infection prognosis, India which detected its first Covid-19 case on 30 January 2020 in a Wuhan returnee, today stands at the cusp of the stage-2 and stage -3 of this pandemic. According to various media reports pouring in, the community transmission has already commenced. Before, the community transmission becomes uncontrollable, the Indian government first imposed a 14 hours Janta Curfew on 22 March 2020 as a precursor to the now imposed 21days countrywide curfew. This is vitally important to prevent this humanitarian crisis from becoming a humanitarian catastrophe.
The military after the initial few engagements quietly stepped back into the wings. However, its top brass has been continuously brainstorming and preparing to deal with the Armageddon that this Covid-19 could present India with. The most crucial steps would be to prevent spread of this infection into the military since a positive case of Covid-19 has already been reported in the military. The troops live in community accommodation with little isolation from each other. They have community bathrooms, community kitchens and dinning and recreation halls. The soldiers each day have mass physical training and sports sessions where they jostle and wrestle together. A single undetected infection could potentially infect large number of soldiers. So rightly, the first step would be to prevent the soldiers before they could be employed to help the civil authorities and the citizens.
The social distancing among soldiers within the given infrastructural and organisational constraints must be ensured. Measures like frequent fumigation and disinfection of living billets, dinning spaces, bathrooms and entertainment rooms, must be implemented. Bathing in open areas, dinning in batches and intervening disinfection of the dining rooms could be some measures to prevent infection. Mandatory hand washing at specified intervals on a given siren could also help prevent transmission of infection. A certain nonchalance, a sort of unconcerned carelessness stemming from the inherent confidence is a distinguished feature of soldiers the world over. This can be only overcome by bringing home the gravity of the situation. The military leaders have an important role in ensuring this communication.
While the nation has so far managed with the police forces as only limited restrictions were imposed thus far, commensurate with the number of confirmed infection cases, the military may sooner than later have to be called in. Therefore, the military leadership must sensitise the troops about the gravity of the situation and also as to what possibly could be expected of them during this nationwide crisis. The Indian government’s decision for not asking the military so far appears to be a well-reasoned and well considered one. Perhaps the government already is working on an escalation ladder comprising the planned tasking of police forces, CAPFs including the NDRF and military in a phased manner based on the severity of the situation.
The military thus needs to psychologically and physically gear up to be called in to aid the civil authorities any time. This would invariably happen around the time when the police and CAPFs would be overwhelmed by the situation and reach their limits of endurance. The military has a vast logistic and medical infrastructure and command, control and communications network, which in addition to the disciplined and skilled manpower can be leveraged to overcome the crisis posed by the outbreak of coronavirus.
The military needs to be prepared for a variety of roles that it could be called upon to perform. This could vary from maintaining law and order, evoked due to the breakdown of essential services to maintain and manage the supply chain, ensure functioning of public distribution system, maintain essential services like water supply, electricity generation and supply, establishing and running field hospitals etc. If the crisis persists longer then it would fall upon the military to run the factories that produce essential medicines and essential medical supplies such as ventilators and disposable personal protection equipment for medical professionals, a la Defence Production Act of the US.
Military’s uniqueness in being able to undertake semi-skilled to highly skilled tasks with minimal training coupled with its discipline and dedication makes it eminently suitable to carry out the plethora of these tasks. However, the military, it should not be given the task of disposing the dead bodies as this could have a demoralising psychological effect on them, and adversely affecting the will power and killer instincts of military troops in any future combat operations.
As the army has limited presence in the peninsular part of India, all these tasks can be effectively undertaken by the Navy. In other parts of the country the navy could also be employed in supply chain management of essential commodities like rations and medicines. Some of the Navy ships can be converted to hospitals for isolating the Covid-19 positive patients and for intensive and critical care. Similarly, the air force can assist in air movement of expert medical teams and redeployment of critical care equipment such as ventilators from one hotspot to another.
Air force can also assist in supply chain management of life saving drugs, medicines and medical equipment from their source of production to their place of use. The defence owned rolling stock includes some hospital trains which can be readily used as hospitals while other defence trains can be converted to isolation and critical care facilities with some effort. The defence sidings in addition to the vast network of railway stations and railway sidings can be utilised for the stabling of these trains from where they can be easily victualed.
While the nation hopes that the existing measures would suffice in controlling the spread of coronavirus infection within the communities and the newly evolving treatment protocols would prove effective in turning the tide against the deadly virus, the military man’s old adage, “prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” cannot be lost sight of. All preparations should commence earnestly keeping this in mind so that ‘the last resort of the nation’ doesn’t disappoint the nation but as always, ensures survival of the nation and the wellbeing of its people.
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Deepak Kumar is a graduate of Kirori Mal College Delhi University and Post graduate form Pune and Madras Universities. An army officer with more than ...
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