Jim O'Neill Coronavirus India

Jim O’Neill, the former Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs, said he is thankful that the novel coronavirus erupted in China and not somewhere like India. He also appreciated China’s response to the crisis by immediately shutting its shores, media reported.

The economist said to CNBC:

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“Thank God this didn’t start in somewhere like India, because there’s absolutely no way that the quality of Indian governance could move to react in the way that the Chinese have done, that’s the good side of the Chinese model, and I think you could probably say the same about Brazil too.”

Jim’s comment on India created a buzz on microblogging site Twitter, where people condemned Jim for his remark on the country.

Jim O’Neill on india
CNBC

A Twitter user Shacind Ananthan (@shacindananthan) wrote a series of tweets to dismantle Jim O’Neill’s bigoted claim.

Below are details from the Twitter thread of Shacind Ananthan in which shows how India has tackled Coronavirus and did not allowed it to become a pandemic

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1. Firstly, despite sharing a border of 3,488 kilometres with China, India has only reported 78 cases and 1 death- compare that with 596 cases and 8 deaths in the UK.

2. India is the only country in the world to evacuate its citizens 6 times (and counting) and evacuated the most number of foreign nationals.

3. The Indian Air Force evacuated a total of 723 Indians, 37 foreign nationals from Wuhan. India evacuated 119 Indians and 5 foreign nationals from Japan. IAF also evacuated 58 Indian pilgrims from Iran on the 10th of March. Total: 900 Indians and 48 foreign nationals.

4. India is leading the fight against COVID-19 in the South Asian region, offering diplomatic, humanitarian and medical assistance to its neighbours.

5. A total of 56 Virus Research Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) have been set up in India to test its citizens as well as foreign citizens in a record time, with a plan to build 56 more VRDLs in the next month. This insane level of efficiency hasn’t caught the eye of the media.

6. India currently has one of the world’s most efficient and reliable testing systems, reducing the time taken to get test results back from 12-14 hours to four hours. US health officials have admitted that their system is failing and has testing has been very sluggish

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7. As a result, from Iran, Afghanistan up to Timor Leste, countries in Asia have been requesting India to help set up testing facilities in their countries.

8. India has sent 6 top scientists to set up a make-shift lab and testing facility in Iran to test 6000 of its citizens because Iranian officials refused to test Indians due to their high load. India plans to send 3 more airplanes in the next week to airlift its citizens.

10. India has provided 15 tonnes of medical assistance comprising masks, gloves and other emergency medical equipment to China.

11. India has screened 1,057,506 people from 30 airports and 77 seaports.

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12. India has suspended all visas to India as well as visa-free travel facility for OCI cardholders. It has closed its border with Myanmar. The Indian nationals coming from COVID-19 hit nations after 15 February will be quarantined for 14 days. This in contrast with the UK with far more cases but no quick action whatsoever.

13. India has the world’s biggest state-sponsored health assurance scheme, covering over 500 million beneficiaries (approximately 8 times the size of the UK).

14. Indian drug prices are among the cheapest in the world. Medbelle ranks India as one of the five countries with the lowest median prices for drugs around the world due to an elaborate price control mechanism for drugs and the government’s Jan Aushadi project to provide cheap affordable medicines to the poor.

15. China had silenced the doctor who identified COVID-19 and he died 6 weeks later. China let this brew. On the other hand, when Nipah virus was found in India in 2018, 3 doctors identified it and authorities immediately reported it to WHO. 2000 quarantined and 17 died in total.

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India would have NEVER allowed it to become a pandemic.

The Indian civilization, being one of the most advanced in the world, has been way ahead of its time with gifting the world the Namaste- which is now propagated by every world leader. Ancient India idealised vegetarianism and expounded Ayurveda, and as a result, did not come in contact with any serious threat from plagues/ diseases in its millenniums of existence. India NEVER created any pandemic in the history of its existence.

You are highly misinformed, Mr. O’Neill.

Jai Hind

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