Stay 1 metre away: Indian Army tells its men amid coronavirus outbreak

In this article, Senior Journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah reflects on the Indian Armed Forces' response to the global health contagion of COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus as well as the defence forces of other countries including those of the United States of America, and People’s Liberation Army of China - the country which is considered to be the epicentre of the deadly virus.

New Delhi: After the two great world wars, another one may have possibly begun albeit of a different kind. And in this war, nations across the globe are battling an enemy no one has any weapons against - the fast-spreading scourge of coronavirus.

On Friday, the Indian Army too stepped in with emergency measures on a war footing advising its personnel to avoid gatherings, crowds and even visits to “animal farms, live animal markets or where animals are slaughtered.”

At the individual level, a 10-point advisory issued by the Indian Army and assessed by ETV Bharat, warned, “Individuals at all levels to be strictly instructed to avoid handshakes and close contacts with people having any respiratory symptoms…avoid mass gatherings as far as possible. Maintain a social distance of at least one metre from others.”

For the 13 lakh strong Indian Army, the second largest in the world, that is a whole lot of area that it will occupy if every army personnel is to stand I metre away from anyone.

The Army has also asked its personnel to “maintain a list of close contacts at home, workplace or from commute or social groups to ease the process of contact tracing during exigency.”

It also warned its personnel to refrain from travel to coronavirus affected countries mentioning China, Iran, Korea, and Singapore.

On Tuesday, the Indian Navy had postponed its biggest exercise ‘MILAN-2020’ that was slated to take place from March 18-28 in India’s eastern seaboard where 30 nations were expected to have participated. The Indian Navy advisory said the decision was taken taking into consideration “the safety of all participants and travel restrictions imposed by the spread” of coronavirus.

Also on a war-footing, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has been engaged in planning out the fight against the virus for the last six weeks.

US defence secretary Mark T Esper has said, “We’ve issued a variety of (memoranda) and directives advising the force on how to deal with coronavirus.”

According to US Army General Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US military is already executing its existing plans to combat infectious disease outbreak while its military research laboratories were working “feverishly” to try to come up with a vaccine. “A command post exercise in South Korea has been postponed, but Exercise Cobra Gold in Thailand is continuing,” he said on Monday.

On the other hand, media reports have expressed surprise over the fact that the world’s largest army - China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has not quite been utilised the way it could have, despite the rampage of the virus reported to have begun from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and a major base of the PLA.

The PLA Logistics Support Force is reported to have set up a “response and coordination mechanism” only on January 26, “almost a month after the virus began to spread and 15 days after it was officially acknowledged” by the Chinese government.

The act is even more glaring because traditionally the PLA has been at the forefront of combating such events whether they are epidemics or natural or man-made disasters.

The latest global figures put the coronavirus infection cases at around 98,000 and more than 3,280 deaths.