COVID 19, Containment, Life, Work and Restart

COVID-19 manifests as a viral respiratory disease that first was imported from Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, and then it spreads from human to human when they come into contact everywhere in every continent. The response has been national and state governance with cooperation from the local government based on disaster management laws. The public health system became the frontline Corona Warriors and was respected by all for their services, but the system capacity was evaluated for its capability to have an unusually substantial number of patients. Many disciplines jointly must contribute a knowledge-based solution based on time series data on infected, recovered and died as well as more reliable serum tests. When a nation declares one peak has reached, the local data shows it has not and so local governance shall be the effective measure based on local data for COVID-19 governance. This book concentrates on local governance for COVID-19. This book believes that COVID-19 cannot be eliminated like smallpox or polio. It can appear and disappear seasonally like common cough and cold, with never-ending mutation of the virus, but it can cause deaths even after we had full vaccinations. The public health systems came out with preventive culture such as wearing masks, practising social distancing, washing hands with disinfectants to combat this virus. The police were deployed to implement preventive measures enumerated above. In this process, both police and public health workers got infected and can even threaten the entire population with more deaths and collapse of the public health system. This book advocates concentrating on urban centres for COVID-19 because of high population density and public realms where the danger of COVID-19 spread from human contact is maximum. The use of humans for data collection and management involving surveys and analysis, policing and intervention of public health persons is all risky prepositions for the individuals involved. This book concentrates on the public realm for work and living and finds an alternate solution that can automate COVID-19 prevention methods with less human involvement. This book gives more importance to local governance based on local data and the use of tools available for local governance such as Master Plans, zonal plans, public realm management using ICT-IoT systems, E-Democracy and E-government. These require modifications to the existing body of knowledge based on COVID-19 prevention capabilities. Hence, zonal plans may get modified and non-human control of the public realm may be institutionalised. This chapter brings together the state of knowledge on all these discussed, and the rest of the chapters use many of them to demonstrate locally based solutions based on locally generated data.

Cities are thought to be the adobe of all services and amenities. But, the public health emergencies like COVID-19 exposed the lacuna of the city systems worldwide. Although some parts of the cities appear to be well served with public utilities and affluence, there remain many deprived spaces where people are more vulnerable to public health emergencies. Bhopal city (1.79 million; 2011) is the capital of Madhya Pradesh State and one of the fast-growing metropolises in India. The city has already experienced the worst gas tragedy, which has demonstrated the stress on the city system; now, COVID-19 has again brought the city to the same door. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the spatial spared of COVID-19 and explore the relationship between the Bhopal gas tragedy and COVID-19 vulnerabilities. The paper also explores the status of available health infrastructure within the city. A review of the draft Bhopal Development Plan-2031 has been done to determine future health infrastructure provisions. Finally, an attempt has been made to find out the role of Bhopal’s Integrated Control and Command Center (ICCC), established under the Smart Cities Mission, in reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 has been a profoundly devastating pandemic spread wide and fast with terrible effects on economies, businesses, and people. Studies suggest that it can last for long in one form or another. Apart from preventive controls like social distancing, use of protective masks, and sanitization, getting vaccinated is the best way individuals could employ at this point. However, we are not clear on how long the protective immunity lasts. Resilience thinking has emerged as the dominant paradigm in covid-related studies. Urban resilience is an umbrella term that describes the measurable ability of urban systems, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses while positively adapting and transforming toward sustainability. Entrepreneurs form an essential part of urban inhabitants. We attempt to understand urban resilience with regard to Covid-19 through an entrepreneurship lens. In this chapter, we explore how entrepreneurs, as inhabitants, take part in the covid resilience of a city, with particular reference to the Kozhikode urban agglomeration of Kerala, India. Our exploration highlights how entrepreneurs sustained their ventures by transforming their business models to gain from opportunities and overcome the challenges posed by Covid-19.

Mumbai, the financial capital of India, has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic not only in terms of health but also in terms of economic and other spheres. This chapter initiates with the preliminary analysis of the COVID-19 situation and its related challenges in Mumbai megacity and further presents an outline of the journey that the metro-city has trailed during the COVID-19 era. With the advent of the pandemic, several restrictive measures were imposed resulting in abrupt loss of jobs, salary reductions, unavailability of public health infrastructure, closure of finance and educational institutions, closure of economic hubs and transportation systems had severely derailed the ‘business as usual’ of Mumbai, thereby impacting the health and well-being of its citizens. This chapter highlights the impact of restrictive measures such as lockdown, night curfew, containment and quarantine and self-isolation. The impacts of the local and state government initiatives and participation of private enterprises and non-profit organisations in order to curb the crisis, with a focus on special models such as ‘4-T model’ ‘chase the virus’ mission implemented on the mega-slum of Dharavi, were studied. The major difficulties and hurdles that were exposed during this period included dwindling health infrastructure, overcrowding and hyper-density, lack of habitable spaces and sanitation facilities. Lastly, the ‘urban restart’ approaches and innovative initiatives taken by the city development authorities in order to reinvigorate the balance between work and life have also been portrayed on the other hand.

The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled the architectural and planning fraternity to assess new realities of spatial and urban planning. There is a need to design adaptable spaces that address the issues of public and personal health. In this context, this study aims to reassess the spatial and socioeconomic strategies for the development of urban settlements of Vijayawada city in state of Andhra Pradesh, India, with specific reference to COVID-19 conditions. The objective is to recognize a modular strategy for an optimum planning unit for the desired density of population and bring out a micro-level planning unit. This self-sufficient unit would respond to the day-to-day economic, social and cultural aspects with specific reference to pandemic risk management strategies (PRM). This study also focuses on developing a planning framework to derive appropriate development control rules for post-COVID-19 development considerations. These set of rules would facilitate the architectural and urban design interventions for settlements at a module level by including the concept of social distancing, social isolation for safety, security and creating a healthy outdoor and indoor environment to curb the spread of pandemic, biological and chemical pollution-oriented disasters. It would act as a catalyst for a broad and abstract thinking process to formulate an endemic control model that would facilitate pandemic specific building bye-laws and development control rules. Post-COVID-19, it is essential to resume activities as usual with economic, ecological, social and physical developments through sustainable parameters. A critical study made to understand the preparedness during the lockdown period of pandemic COVID-19 and appropriate planning interventions have been identified to establish a sustainable environment through Principal Component Analysis. It enables the understanding of the vulnerability, livability, resilience and adaptability to operate the urban systems, despite the highly communicable virus existing in our society, through high-order mitigation measures with appropriate preparedness.

This chapter has two parts. In the first part, the goals and the organisational details of the international collaborative research project “COVID-19: Containment, Life, Work and Urban Restart” are discussed. In the second part in consultation with the team leaders of the area studies including the city study, their general conclusions of the area study on COVID-19 are presented.