It was on a warm March evening four years ago when India experienced an unprecedented, total and long-drawn, nationwide health-related restriction on public movements, called ‘lockdown’, to combat the early fears of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Sensing the possible repercussions of the deadly prowl of the Covid-19 virus which reportedly took ‘birth’ in China the previous year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 11, 2020, officially declared it as a global pandemic, virtually isolating people and countries of the world from each other.
A fortnight later, among the first in the international comity of nations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared the nationwide lockdown (March 24, 2020).
People locked up in their homes, villages, towns, cities, districts, states, and even the country as a whole and shuddered indoors for months thereafter.
After four years today, the Covid-19 pandemic notched up an ominous track record for India and the world.
As per the Covid-19 tracker, Worldometer, India recorded a total of 4,50,33,332 cases. Of which, a staggering 533,535 were fatal.
The US led the planet with a stupendous 11,17,27,592 afflictions and the highest 12,18,464 deaths — more than double of India’s toll.
The world notched a grand total of 70,43,18,936 infections and 70,07,114 souls falling to the scourge of the invisible virus.
At the other extreme, of the 229 countries on earth monitored by Worldometer, the Western Sahara (West Africa) had the lowest — 10 Covid-19 infections plus one death — in a population of around 500,000, making it the second most sparsely populated country in the world.
It was preceded by the Vatican City — the abode of The Pope — with 29 afflictions, Tokelau (80), in the sub-100 category.
In the 1000-plus recorded cases were Niue (1,059 cases, near New Zealand), Montserrat (1,403 cases and 8 deaths, in the Caribbean Isles, a British Overseas Territory), and Falkland Islands (1,930 cases, another British Overseas Territory and the cause of the Falklands war of 1982 between Argentina and UK).
As the world reeled under the impact of Covid-19, certain epochal developments were witnessed — the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina was cancelled that year for the two million-plus Muslims who converge there from around the world every year.
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