in India on 30 January. However, a week later, the Centre amended this ban and allowed export of all types of gloves, except NBR gloves as well as surgical masks. The ban only came into effect later on 19 March, when the government finally began to realise the gravity of the situation.

Also read: Covid doesn’t deserve the levels of panic we’re seeing in India, certainly not this lockdown

Disastrous response

Now to the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). This force is third in line in a medical emergency, after doctors, paramedics and health workers. The NDRF flagged the threat of Covid-19 virus in February itself and has apparently since then started training 600 of its personnel in every battalion, each battalion having 1,150 personnel, to help health workers contain theCovid-19 outbreak.

There are 12 NDRF battalions spread across India. Director general of NDRF, S.N. Pradhan, in an interview came across as someone who was not abreast with the chronology of cases in India. He said: “In February, when there was not even one case in India, we had alerted about the virus coming from China.” What Pradhan should’ve known is that by February, there were 6 reported cases of Covid-19 patients in India.

It was only on 4 March that the minister of health and family welfare, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, announced compulsory screening of all international passengers arriving in India because the virus was not just coming from China but from Europe too. Till then, only passengers from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam,