Given a lot of hue and cry now happening over the covid-19 pandemic that our world is facing today, its perhaps time to reflect upon its microcosm and macrocosm to have a fair idea of both the problem and its solution especially from an Indian point of view.

The microcosm

• Microcosm means a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristics of something much larger. In this context, it retraces the fundamentals to creation of a pandemic. A part of the world confronted with SARS in 2003, and then with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012. The fact is that in these cases, including the COVID-19, the virus found in bats has jumped from animals to humans. In the case of SARS, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that the civet cat, raccoon dog and badger were the most likely intermediate hosts. In the case of MERS, the camel was the intermediate host.
• The route of COVID-19 is not yet clear — the local market, which is seen to be the source of the outbreak, does not sell bats, it is said. But even as scientists work out the details, the fact is that we are beginning to see more zoonotic diseases — from swine flu to avian influenza. These are diseases that are getting transferred from animals to humans, triggering a pandemic.
• The fact is that so much of this virus transference is happening because of our dystopian relationship with the natural world. On the one hand, we are pushing every kind of chemical and toxin into our food. This is making food a source of disease, not just nutrition. Antibiotics are being shoved into animals and even crops — not for disease control but to make them grow more; put on weight, so that business profits. As a result, resistance to drugs needed for human survival is on the rise.
• On the other, we are growing our food in ways that favour disease growth — industrial farms, which are vertically integrated, are fast becoming the source of contagion. Remember the origin of swine flu from industrial hog factories in Mexico that contaminated water! This breaking of the boundaries between animal and human habitats will lead to more such outbreaks. And this, in a world that is even more inter-connected and globalised, will make the infection wildly contagious.

The macrocosm

• In the past three decades, the world has invested in building a monolith trade system, which has no local or regional control.
• The risk management systems of the poor should teach us that diversification is the key to survival. The farmers of our world always minimised risk through a system of crop and livestock management. They grew a variety of crops — scientists have counted over 50 crops growing in single homesteads. They reduced dependence on the factors that they could not control, but worked on ways to build more resilient local economies.
• With global markets in a tailspin and the International Monetary Fund warning of a global recession, all major economies, including India will take a hit, and the growth in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) could come down sharply in the next couple of quarters.
• The only silver lining amid the pandemic lies in the fall in crude oil prices, which has improved the trade balance and is likely to bring down inflation. Of the four indicators of the ease of living scorecard--- headline and core inflation, real rural wages and job outlook--- three were in the red, as of February. Only core inflation was in green. The fall in headline inflation could be a welcome relief in the coming months but the distress in the rural sector and impact on jobs could offset any such gains and dampen the purchasing power of most Indians.
• The decline in inflation would however give room to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut policy rates. While RBI has announced some measures to boost liquidity in the foreign exchange and domestic markets, it has stopped short of cutting interest rates so far unlike global peers, which have front-loaded rate cuts.
• Lower crude oil prices could also result in a revenue gain for the central government of about 0.4% of GDP. But this is unlikely to provide much space for another round of fiscal stimulus, said Anubhuti Sahay of Standard Chartered in a report dated March 12. Besides, the government may want to allocate extra funds to healthcare.
• The spread of Covid-19, in India and globally, is likely to be the biggest determinant of how the macro-tracker is going to look like in the coming months. All arms of public policy --- fiscal and monetary --- will be required to mitigate the economic impact of the health shock.

Conclusion

Now, I know that we cannot turn back the clock of globalisation; we cannot wish away this monster world trade system. It is profitable and it is aspirational — everybody wants to be integrated to the world supply chain. But surely, given the almost certain shocks that await us in our world, it is time we re-thought the very idea of globalisation. Let’s start by working on localisation first. Its time when we put in motion the slogan- "think global act local."