COVID-19: Lessons from Asian Cities
ROADS & HIGHWAYS

COVID-19: Lessons from Asian Cities

CW’s webinar discussed how Asian cities are coping with the pandemic and possible strategies to overcome the crisis. Cities drive economic growth. But COVID-19 has put the brakes on the economic engine. Whether a government locks down a city or minimises its pace with s...

CW’s webinar discussed how Asian cities are coping with the pandemic and possible strategies to overcome the crisis. Cities drive economic growth. But COVID-19 has put the brakes on the economic engine. Whether a government locks down a city or minimises its pace with strict rules, the outcome is financial disaster. Cities need to act fast and use their resources well to stem the tide and return to some semblance of normalcy. To learn how cities are coping with the crisis, Smart Cities Council India and CW conducted a webinar titled ‘COVID19: Lessons from Asian Cities’. The webinar began with presenter Pratap Padode, Founder and Director, Smart Cities Council India, and Editor-in-Chief, CW, welcoming the guest panellists to the session. Rajendra Bhatt, District Magistrate, Bhilwara, Rajasthan, gave a special address during the session (see box). The panellists included Kok-Chin Tay (KC), Chairman, Smart Cities Network; Vikash Chandra, Smart City & PPP Expert, Smart Cities Mission; Manojit Bose, Smart City Expert, Smart City Pune; Yudhistira Nugraha, Head, Jakarta Smart City Office; Dr Sunil Dubey, Adjunct Faculty-University of Sydney, Institutional Advisor-Urban Innovation & Smart Cities, The University of Sydney. City measures Singapore: Singapore is seen an exemplar in controlling the pandemic and being organised. “Singapore has written lessons in the Journal of Travel Medicine, outlining the six main measures of communication, policies and enforcement,” shared KC. “We set up a multi-ministry task force to tackle health issues with COVID. We have border controls to ensure people entering Singapore are put into quarantine. We have healthcare measures that allow 800 public health preparedness clinics to do testing. Our prime minister has announced an extension of the‘circuit breaker’. We are putting in measures to ensure community spread is contained; almost half a million foreign workers have been put in total lockdown. We have only essential services operating.” Pune: Mumbai and Pune have been among the most critical hotspots affected by COVID-19 in India. “The command-and-control centre, set up as part of the Smart Cities mission, is being used as a war room,” revealed Bose. “Also, with GIS, we are tracking not only patients but quarantine cases through community surveillance, variable messaging devices, public address systems, etc. Community awareness within people is being extensively created; we have also developed a mobile app to track citizens quarantined at home. A mobile dispensary has been pressed into service; many flu clinics have been operationalised to provide at least an initial check for people with suspected flu symptoms. If there is any further requirement, people are diverted to hospitals and other places.” Jakarta: Indonesia is notably still maintaining a decent level in controlling the spread of the pandemic. Speaking of data monitoring of COVID-19 cases at the national level and in Jakarta, Nugraha told us, “Jakarta has established a large-scale, semi-lockdown restriction. This policy is carried out in coordination with central government regulation through the Ministry of Health. Through this policy, the Jakarta Government has limited activities of citizens by implementing work-from-home and learning-from-home. While there are many cases showing up in the city, there is also a limitation of cases. At the national level, we have created an application for contacts tracing.” Sydney: The COVID graph curves are flattening in Sydney. “Sydney is relatively low in population with only about 7.5 million people,” said Dubey. “So far, we have quite a low level of confirmed cases. Our biggest concern is how to contain activities so we can prolong flattening the curve for much longer. We haven’t locked down in a very hard way like European cities. We still have relative economic and business freedom to do things; so we have an advantage there because of the lower population.” India’s smart cities using technology to tackle COVID “We have kind of been able to slow down the infection in India; we are still not in a war-like situation,” said Chandra. “The 100 cities selected under the government’s Smart Cities mission have become more proactive in the use of technology. There are about 45 command-and-control centres operational and each of them actually rose to the occasion. They have become war rooms and are helping to map confirmed cases, their contacts, their journey, the number of people they could have infected, wards for quarantine, etc. Cities have risen to this situation and are using technology to help people.” Besides, many technological innovations are being undertaken by start-ups in India. There is AI-based monitoring of people via real-time alerts to see if they are wearing masks or using thermal cameras. There are drone-based solutions that support police and ULBs for effective and efficient management. Further, there are contactless wireless thermal sensors and images that measure the temperature data of individuals, even a group or crowd; you can actually work the thermal monitor through a drone. There are also wireless technologies that minimise exposure to healthcare workers. The Bhilwara model Rajendra Bhatt, District Magistrate, Bhilwara, Rajasthan, takes us through the successful measures incorporated to contain the spread of the pandemic in Bhilwara: Bhilwara is a small city in Rajasthan, India, with a population of less than 3 million or 2,728 lakh. We first realised that two doctors of a renowned hospital, who were seeing nearly 7,000 patients in the hospital and 3,000 or more at home, were infected. There was a clear risk of community spread in the district with people moving around and in contact with these doctors as well as the risk of spread to other districts as well. We tried to contain or stop the community spread systematically. The firststep was to ensure nobody went out of Bhilwara and spread it elsewhere and nobody come into Bhilwara and get infected. So, theprimary task was to seal the border and isolate the district. While the cases kept increasing, with limited test facilities available, we imposed a curfew in two phases. In the first phase,we allowed essential services like small convenience stores, medicine shops, etc, to be open, while the second phase was a total shutdown. We closed everything and everything was provided to the people through home delivery. We sealed the city so that nobody from the city could enter the rural areas and vice versa. There was also a double check system and all borders were sealed.I then also wrote to the railways and roadways to stop services. This was followed about a week before the lockdown in India was announced. We also marked the hospital as the first epicentre in the city; there was a containment zone or no-movement zone made in a 1-km radius from the hospital. Then, there was another buffer zone made at 3 km. Sanitation and other services were continuously ongoing in these no-movement zones. We also did cluster mapping, through which we identified six areas with positive cases. We deployed special teams for continuous screening of these suspected cases.All this was prior to the nationwide lockdown being announced. Further, 300 teams (with three persons in one team) were on the job to screen the whole city. We also had door-to-door surveys to ensure we had not reached community spread. We constituted 1,950 rural teams for door-to-door collection of samples. We have 1,910 villages in Bhilwara and made 1,950 teams with three members each. They would go to homes and check on the travel and health history of citizens. This was tedious part because we could not test or screenso many people at one time because we didn’t have thermal guns. We then had the identified people home-quarantined and all requisites and materials were supplied to their homes. In the first survey of the rural area, nearly 2.3 million people were surveyed in seven days and more than 14,800 people were home-quarantined and their movement restricted.We also acquired major private hospitals because our district hospital was used as the COVID hospital. So, 27 hotels were made quarantine centres. Our medical team has done excellent work. After taking these measures, here’s what we saw: In the first 14 days, we were expecting nearly 100-150 patients; in the next 14 days nearly 500; and in the 14 days after that nearly 1,000-2,000 cases. But we were able to contain the number from 26 in the first seven days. We worked with a ruthless containment strategy and mapping of thoughts.” To share your views, write in at feedback@ConstructionWorld.in

Related Stories

Gold Stories

Hi There!

Now get regular updates from CW Magazine on WhatsApp!

Click on link below, message us with a simple hi, and SAVE our number

You will have subscribed to our Construction News on Whatsapp! Enjoy

+91 81086 03000

Join us Telegram