Section 3 MAJOR VULNERABILITIES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

3. MAJOR VULNERABILITIES DURING

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Vulnerability refers to the condition where the risk to exposure of community increase toward the hazard.9 According to Bizimana 2015 ‘Vulnerability to natural hazards refers to the conditions determined by physical, social, economic, and environmental factors that increase the susceptibility of a community to hazards’. Study suggests that to develop strategies against vulnerability needs knowledge regarding the social, economic, and political factors that trigger the vulnerability and the factors helps to built up adaptive capacity.10 As articulated in The Lancet,14 vulnerability in the present context is a dynamic concept—a person or a group might not be vulnerable at the beginning of the pandemic, but could subsequently become vulnerable depending on the government response. Beyond the groups who are epidemiologically vulnerable to COVID-19 (eg, older people and individuals with comorbidities), there might be people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds who are vulnerable as they struggle to cope with the crisis in various ways—financially, mentally, or even physically.11

COVID-19 has brought a threatening challenge to the Indian society and economy. The major challenge is to provide basics medical facilities to the huge numbers of incoming infected people if, the community spread takes place in the vast territory. To contain the spread of COVID-19, nation-wide lock down and subsequent extension of lock down were announced in India since March 22, 2020. The nation-wide stay-at-home order along with travel bans, closer of markets and industries have disproportionately affected millions of poor people in the country who found themselves in dire hunger for loosing wages and livelihoods. However, as identified by experts12, the economic shutdown is not the permanent solution from this pandemic because this emergency demand more constructive socio-economic and public health reforms form a political and apolitical organization. Socio economic parameters have great influences on vulnerabilities, as adverse socio economic condition increase the inability to withstand the effect of a hostile situation, particularly in developing countries like India.13

9 Holand I.S., Lujala P., Rod J.K. Social vulnerability assessment for Norway: a quantitative approach. 10 Aksha S.K., Juran L., Resler L.M., Zhang Y. An analysis of social vulnerability to natural hazards in Nepal using a modified social vulnerability 11 The Lancet Redefining vulnerability in the era of COVID-19. Lancet. 2020; 3951089 12 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7470821/#bib29 13 Acharya R., Porwal A. A vulnerability index for the management of and response to the COVID-19 epidemic in India: an ecological study. Lancet Glob Heal. 2020