Swapneil Parikh - The Coronavirus: What you Need to Know about the Global Pandemic

India celebrated its seventy-first Republic Day on 26 January 2020. In New Delhi, the parade commenced at 9.30 a.m. with the President hoisting the flag to a twenty-one-gun salute. The army, navy and air force displayed their military might, followed by motorcycle daredevilry and twenty-two floats of various states. Over 100,000 people were in attendance.

Meanwhile, 3500 miles away, the Chinese army was engaged in a brutal display of a different kind. The effective lockdown of Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, was being enforced at incredible speed. All public transportation including railways, roads, flights and ferry services were suspended. Residents could not leave the city without permission, although about 300,000 had escaped in the eight-hour window before the notice became effective. Within a day, twelve more neighbouring cities were on lockdown, bringing the quarantined population to over 50 million. It was the largest quarantine in human history.

Approximately midway between New Delhi and Wuhan, my friend Ram Ranga, former mental health director at Delaware, and I were drifting in the Ganga delta in search of the elusive Sundarbans tiger. We were deep in conversation about 2019-nCoV, as it was then known. What if a single person in Indias Republic Day parade was infected with the virus? Among the attendees was the consular staff from China and 140 other countries. I was also concerned about the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, a world-class 300-bed facility, and my workplace in Mumbai for over thirty years. I knew, from the 200203 SARS and the 2012 MERS outbreaks, that healthcare workers were among those worst hit by the deadly coronaviruses. I was concerned for the hospitals other patients, already weakened from disease, and also for my fellow healthcare workers. Although Jaslok was well equipped, there was considerable work to be done. We needed to have a protocol for the pandemic unleashing its fury, like the hurricanes that periodically batter the Sundarbans.

Internet connectivity being intermittent, we followed the updates as best we could. Given the documented unreliability of Chinese reports during the 200203 SARS outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) and The Lancets Coronavirus Resource Centre were credible resources. The information was as chilling as the wind that cut through the boat.

I returned to Mumbai on 28 January, and commenced work with my colleagues to put together an eBulletin on the virus and to create a protocol for dealing with the disease.

While putting in eighteen-hour workdays, I got a call from the astute Milee Ashwarya, publisher, Penguin Random House India. Our conversation about the new coronavirus covered its virology, medical response and the political and economic implications for China and the world. The conversation seeded the idea for this book. As I was preoccupied with the protocol, I requested two co-authors, my son Swapneil and my colleague Maherra Desai. She granted my request and commissioned this book, giving us two weeks to prepare a manuscript; eventually, we needed eight.