COVID-19 here to stay till 2021: Rahul Gandhi with Prof. Ashish Jha & Prof. Johan Giesecke on coronavirus

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According to Global Health Expert’s novel coronavirus is here to live for more than a year and has called for rigorous monitoring to avoid its spread.

In conversation with Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi, health experts Professor Ashish Jha and Professor Johan Giesecke spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the series being broadcast on Congress’ social media platforms.

Prof Giesecke believed that a severe lockdown will ruin its economy very quickly; hence India should practice a lockdown that is as flexible as possible. “When the economy is opened up after lockdown, you have to create confidence among people.” Harvard health expert Ashish Jha told Gandhi. He also exuded that a vaccine for this will be available in a year’s time. According to him, coronavirus is a ’12-18 months’ setback and the whole world is not going to be free of this till 2021. He is the Dean of Brown University School of Public Health, professor of Global Health, T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director, Harvard Global Health.

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Image source- Youtube

Rahul Gandhi, while interacting with the experts, said everyone’s life is going to change after COVID-19. He also remarked that “If 9/11 was a new chapter, this will be a new book.” The former chief scientist, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Professor Johan Giesecke said that India should have a flexible lockdown’ for its growth. “The situation that India is in, I think, you should have a soft lockdown, as soft as possible,” he said. He also stated that- “I think for India, you will ruin your economy very quickly if you have a severe lockdown. It is better, skip the lockdown, and take care of the old and the frail.”



In the last month, Gandhi has spoken to several global experts and addressed the socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic. This was the third in the series. Later he talked with former Indian Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor Abhijit Banerjee.


Here is the full video of the whole conversation of Rahul Gandhi with Prof. Ashish Jha & Prof. Johan Giesecke.