Role of Digital Media During Covid-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic in India (PART 1 OF 2)
Role of Digital Media During Covid-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic in India - A Research
THE ENTIRE RESEARCH IS DIVIDED INTO TWO POSTS. THIS IS POST 1.
INTRODUCTION -
BACKGROUND, IMPACT AND PROGRESS OVER TIME -
THE ENTIRE RESEARCH IS DIVIDED INTO TWO POSTS. THIS IS POST 1.
INTRODUCTION -
2020 is no doubt one of
the most weird and sad year that the humanity witnessed in 21st
century and well also in a long time, the entire world is currently going
through a global pandemic caused by COVID-19 or Coronavirus. It is something no
one was really able to predict at first and that it would do so much harm to
the entire world and the people living. We live in India and the situation here
is pretty bad too. People are Quarantined at their home, there is lockdown in
the entire nation and over 50,000 people have reported Covid-19 cases with
almost 2000 people reported dead by it. Digital media is playing a huge role in
our daily lives now as more and more people are connected to the Internet now
in India and it is playing a huge role during this COVID-19 Pandemic. People
started to get know about Coronavirus since its very starting from Wuhan, China
through various digital content such as Youtube videos, news articles, social
media posts mainly comprising Twitter when people really started noticing it.
But most of us didn’t really know that it would create a global pandemic within
a few months and a lot of things would change. Early theory on how the virus
spread said that the virus originated from Bats as such viruses are found
inside them and that someone in Wuhan, China got those viruses in him by eating
the Bat. He worked at the Huanan Seafood Market there and slowly he transmitted
the virus to different people he came in contact with.
The Coronavirus is a zoonotic
disease which means that it jumps or transmits from animals to humans. There is
another theory which said that the human didn’t actually eat the Bat but the
Bat transmitted the disease to a snake and the snake transmitted it to the
human. One theory said that it spread live to the human at the Seafood market
when someone came in physical contact with it.
Some people made theories
saying that the virus was created in a lab and then spread to humans for a
purpose the Chinese had in their mind.
The early symptoms of
Coronavirus can be traced back to November 2019 and it started spreading slowly
by December 2019 to other people in Wuhan, China. There were just different theories
on how the virus started and spread by people. As news travels really fast on
the Social media, it spread across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other
platforms pretty soon and people from India & around the world started to
get know about it and the danger it may possess to the people and the world.
Digital Media played an extremely important role in bringing information, news
and awareness about COVID-19. This was the introduction to Coronavirus and it's
early roots, now we will focus on when Digital media started playing its
crucial role before the pandemic and after the pandemic in India.
BACKGROUND, IMPACT AND PROGRESS OVER TIME -
By the beginning of 2020
it was confirmed that the rate on how fast Covid-19 is spreading across the
world is getting faster as days are passing. But still most people couldn’t
imagine it to be a global pandemic. People have now just started being aware that the virus is non
treatable and a person having Coronavirus may show symptoms such as coughing,
sore throat, headaches, difficulty in breathing and fever. It was also reported
that people who are elderly/are of old age are more likely to die from Covid-19
than people who are adults, teenagers or children. The first Coronavirus case
in India was reported in 30th January 2020 and by 29th
January 2020 there were approx. 6065 confirmed Coronavirus cases, 5997 cases
being in China and 68 cases from 15 other countries. First case in India which
was in 30th January 2020 was reported in Kerela state where a
student who came back to India from Wuhan, China had got it and this was pretty
much the beginning in India. Coronavirus became the main topic of discussion
for Indians on the Digital Media platforms. By the starting of March the
tourists who came back to India from Italy reported cases of COVID-19 and now
the virus started spreading even faster and to more people as they weren’t
Quarantined and came in contact with other people. More people who were in
foreign countries came back to India over time and some were Corona positive.
All of this was being reported by various Indian Digital Medias and people were
reacting about it on their social medias that Indian government should have
done something about it earlier and check up on people coming back to India
from foreign countries, get them Quarantined and test more and more people as
the situation may get much worse. It was really true. On 12th March
2020, first confirmed death report came, when a 76 year old man who had travel
history to Saudi Arabia died due to Coronavirus. He lived in Kalaburgi,
Karnataka. People in India were now in panic and worrying about them, their
families and loved on. WHO had declared Coronavirus as a Global Pandemic but
still in India the government wasn’t doing much. Schools, colleges were still
open and people were just travelling in masses outside, work was still going
on. There was no lockdown as of yet in India or strict rules for Coronavirus
Pandemic. Indian people were posting everyday on their social medias about it and
asking when the government will finally start doing its job properly and try to
control the situation before it gets much worse like other countries. By 10
March 2020, the global confirmed Coronavirus case was already around 110,000
with around 3800 deaths by it. Here are some tweets by people about
schools/colleges still being open when the virus has already started spreading
in India.
It was good that people
in India now have started taking this a bit more seriously now and so the
government started doing its job as well. Delhi government decided to shut down
schools, colleges, movie halls, malls and other places where masses of people
are gathered to stop Coronavirus from spreading to more people. This happened
in 12th March 2020 and was the second state doing this after Kerela.
At this time the confirmed cases in India was about 73 and later in evening
first confirmed death report in India which was mentioned above. Government
shutting down schools and colleges in Delhi was a relief for many people but
this was not the only way to prevent Covid-19 from spreading faster, the
government had to do more things and well also the entire country taking part
in it.
Soon along with Delhi,
the NCR regions also joined. Colleges and schools in Noida were also closed and
soon Gurgaon, Faridabad and so on. Other states also participated in this
following the capital of India. Schools and colleges decided that student’s
education should not be left behind so they decided to take online classes
where the students can safely attend them with proper social distancing and of
course completing the syllabus matters too for educational institutes.
Closing educational
institutes was indeed a great decision by various state governments but then
what about the working class of people who still have to go to work every day,
travelling and they are more likely to catch Covid-19 than other people.
Government had to do something about it too. Protection of every citizen in
India should be priority, every person’s life matter and the situation was only
getting worse.
Now let’s fast forward a
little bit when it was on the news that finally the entire India may get into
the lockdown phase to prevent overspreading of Coronavirus and to create an
proper infrastructure which deals with daily rise of Covid-19 patients and to
properly Quarantine them. Government had to set up hundreds of thousands of
beds with centers to get people tested and to provide them health facilities to
those are tested positive. For such a huge country like India with around 1.3
billion population, it was not an easy job but a job of a lot of patience, care,
planning and people who risk their lives to make it happen. Finally, a 21 days
nationwide lockdown happened as Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the
night before. It started from 25th March 2020 and was supposed to
last till 14th April 2020. This was no doubt one of the biggest
things happened in India since the starting of 2020 and Coronavirus Pandemic.
END OF PART 1.
CLICK HERE FOR PART 2
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