Is Social Distancing a Panacea? A Socio-Anthropological Case of Intimacy of Community Health Workers from Eastern Indian State (original) (raw)

The novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 has become a global Pandemic and to date, the death toll has surged past 4, 00,000 people. This virus is combined with a large number of viruses that are infectious to not only human beings but also other beings such as animals. The infection passes from human to human through contact with individuals with COVID-19 symptoms. The symptoms of COVID-19 are ranging from fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, headache, tiredness, chest pain, conjunctivitis, and others. On 26 June 2020, in India the number of COVID-19 cases have reached 4, 75,770 and the fatality rate of the country is 2.82 percent which is much lower than the global fatality rate of 6.13 percent (Covid-19 Updates, Government of India; Times of India). Scholars belonging to all disciplines have opined that the outbreak of the virus has the worst impact on human society across the globe. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols, one of the main means to tackle this pandemic is to follow the social distancing norms. Accordingly, governments of all the affected countries have advised their citizens to adhere to the guidelines, strictly follow social distancing norms, and enforced them with strict vigilance in few pockets. In India, it is evident that the women, Dalits, and other vulnerable people who are at the lower rung of the social hierarchy have to face a disproportionate burden of the pandemic. These vulnerable groups suffer both socially and economically which ultimately led to an increase in mortality rate, loss of their livelihoods, and difficulty to access health care services. In rural areas of India, the health needs of vulnerable groups are much higher compared to urban people due to their low levels of literacy, the standard of living, and inequality in access