COVID19: Should Pearl Be Organized?
Written on March 10th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}From sporting events and concerts across Europe [1] to IIT Delhi’s technical fest [2] and NLS Bangalore’s annual debate tournament [3], a plethora of events around the world are seeing cancellations and delays as the novel Coronavirus propagates fear through the general public. An advisory from the University Grants Commission on the 5th of March to all universities directing them to “avoid large gatherings” [4] is perhaps responsible for a lot of these cancellations. While it is undeniable that a lot of time, effort and money has already gone towards organizing Pearl 2020 and cancelling it would come at a considerable cost in terms of resources and time already spent, the undeniable health risks associated with organising a large event with plenty of outsiders must also be taken into account. With less than 10 days to go for our cultural festival, Pearl 2020, let’s take a detailed look at some factors that should come into play while deciding to organise Pearl or not.
To start with: what are the actual health risks of the virus?
For a more detailed summary of how the virus began, see our earlier article on Coronavirus (Feb 2020).
The biggest issue with the COVID-19 outbreak is the lack of information and established procedures regarding the virus since it is a new strain. The lack of information is feeding into multiple narratives and false information, which is leading to mass panic and hysteria. Unnecessary inputs suggesting people should be kept from leaving home or that a certain type of food should be banned is not only blatantly non-factual and pointless – it’s very dangerous and has the potential to bring about mass panic in the streets. It is important to get our facts straight. Misinformation in these trying times can be deadly. 27 people in Iran died due to methanol poisoning from rumours of bootleg booze being a cure to coronavirus and some people in the United States have been drinking bleach in an effort to prevent the virus.
It causes infections of the nose, throat and lungs. They are most commonly spread from an infected person through respiratory droplets generated when you cough or sneeze; close, prolonged personal contact, such as touching or shaking hands; and touching something with the virus on it, then touching your mouth, nose or eyes before washing your hands. At this time, there is no vaccine for COVID-19 or any natural health products that are authorized to protect against it.
Important side note here – while the virus does transmit through respiratory droplets – wearing masks is not a solution. The most common masks sold in the market (surgical masks) do not have small enough pores to capture the virus within the droplets and the specialised masks (the N-95s) are in an acute shortage in the market. Trying to stockpile and use these masks in a bid to prevent infection is dangerous for two primary reasons.
Firstly, it makes it harder to make the masks available for people actually suffering from COVID-19 and healthcare professionals, both of whom need it most. Furthermore, studies indicate that it is statistically likelier for masks to make people touch their faces more often due to incorrect usage. So, wearing regular masks or the N-95’s is a dangerous consequence of hysteria and the populace is reminded not to wear either but to use general hygienic precautionary measures instead.
All this being said, Coronavirus is probably not going to be the end of the world. In today’s world of less than accurate social media “news” stories, the data often gets hidden. COVID-19 appears to have an infection rate of less than 1% (calculated by dividing the exposure of the number of infected people in Wuhan with the population of Wuhan) and less than 0.6% of an accurate fatality rate (by South Korea's estimate - the only country doing any viable large-scale testing). The disease also has a pretty fair non-hospital requirement for getting better. Around 80% of the cases of RECOGNISED infections pass with little to no symptoms beyond flu/flu-like and the rest of the 20% disproportionately impact those with pre-existing conditions (or old people). The odds that you get the disease and suffer from it are very low and most cases can be treated through general over-the-counter medication and with a quick recovery. However, even an infection without major consequences is one that could bring regions to a standstill and any precaution that would prevent any major consequences must be accepted.
What’s the situation in Hyderabad right now?
In Hyderabad, there has only been one confirmed positive case of COVID-19 so far [5]. Although many more people were suspected of having COVID all their test results came out to be negative, or people are still in quarantine. The one positive case was of a man travelling from Dubai, who took a flight to Bangalore and finally a bus to Hyderabad. He is now being treated in Gandhi Hospital. All of those on the bus were detained and tested negative. Here are two important aspects to consider:
- Not everyone displaying symptoms or in contact with an infected person will catch the disease. The sheer amount of misinformation surrounding this is alarming and can prove dangerous. While the virus is dangerous – there is no reason to be in such a high state of alarm for the same. Panic is a bigger issue than the virus at this point.
- While it is possible (and likely) that India has fallen short of measuring the actual number by missing actual positive cases due to poor testing infrastructure, it is unlikely that we need extreme measures and decisions that other countries like the US, China and Italy are taking. (Italy is now in complete lockdown, as it has the highest number of COVID deaths after China, where the nation’s 60 million people are being advised to stay at home, leaving the streets deserted.)
Panic in Hyderabad’s IT Corridor
The recent scare in Raheja Mindspace caused panic amongst companies in Hyderabad’s IT corridor. An employee was suspected to have contracted the disease and the company sent out an email to employees ordering them to evacuate [6]. This email went viral amongst IT employees in the area rippling fear across Madhapur. However, after she was tested, it turned out that it was negative. Later that day, the police commissioner gave a strict statement, stating that spreading misinformation would lead to consequences.
As of now, there are 46 known cases in India and fortunately no deaths. Most have been contained and quarantined. At the workplace, those who recently travelled are being asked to work from home for a week, and the situation remains comparatively normal. However, the same cannot be said across the world in USA, Italy, Dubai and of course, China. Large educational institutions in the United States such as the University of Washington and Stanford University have been shut down with students attending online classes, while MIT has banned gatherings of 150+ people.
What’s the situation like with other college fests?
A handful of colleges have already cancelled their fests and campus events given the severity of the situation, including NLS Bangalore, IIT Delhi and a couple of other universities.
Table 1: Some Events Cancelled or Rescheduled
Despite the threat, a few colleges and events still did continue with their original schedules. Their circumstances are, however, slightly different from ours. MILAN in SRM Chennai had closed their sponsorship deals, confirmed and booked their artists and had initiated ticket sales. Also, the lack of confirmed cases in Chennai at the time of organising was a pretty large factor in their decision to continue with the fest.
For Anaadyanta of NMIT Bangalore and Aatmatrisha of PES Bangalore, the artists had been ready to come and they had already sold out their tickets. Moreover, at the time, only one confirmed case of coronavirus had been reported in the city and the panic that Bangalore is seeing today hadn’t arrived yet. Revels, Manipal’s fest continued as they felt the low outside participation in the fest drastically reduced the risk of any COVID-19 infection. The other events on the list are events predominantly attended by people of the same college and smaller events, as opposed to Pearl, which gets participants from off-campus and probably has higher participation.
Table 2: Events that proceeded as scheduled
Pearl 2020: How much time, effort and money has been invested so far?
Preparation for Pearl’20 started a long time ago, well before the start of this calendar year - with decisions such as theme, locations of regionals and the beginnings of background research started towards the ending of 2019. In this section, we’ll try to summarise how much time and money has been invested on Pearl so far.
- A lot of time, effort and money has been spent on organising regionals for various Pearl events, organised by Hindi Tarang, Comedy Club and Music Club. Regionals for Hindi Tarang events were conducted in six cities so far, some of which were organised during the peak of the CAA protests and cost around Rs.20k, according to the Hindi Tarang secretary, Mehul Bhatia. Music Club regionals in Hyderabad and Bangalore cost Rs. 15k, said Music Club secretary, Arjun Singh. Comedy Club secretary Ashutosh Karaiya said that the club organised regionals in four cities so far, at an expense of around Rs. 12k, and that the Hyderabad regional is yet to happen.
- When it comes to proshows, the head of Department of Professional Events (DoPE) for Pearl, Koushik Swaminathan, said that the proshows have been finalised. Usually, proshow artists require some advance (upto 50% of their fee) upfront and the rest of the amount the day before the fest. According to DoPE, no significant payments have been made so far, but the deadlines are coming up pretty soon. Koushik also added that most MoUs/contracts with artists have clauses that allow some degree of rescheduling, if the rescheduling is caused due to natural causes or acts of gods. When it comes to the production for proshows, Ashit Sinha, the StuCCAn of LSD, said that he was in touch with a couple of production companies, but that no MOUs had been signed yet. He mentioned, however, that the rates would continue increasing, and that finalizing things as soon as possible was paramount. As soon as the MoU is signed, an initial advance has to be paid to the company to finalize the deal - in case the fest has to be cancelled after the advance is paid, it might be possible to get a refund of the advance since this might be considered to be caused by a natural act. However, this is not really a guarantee and we should not really bank on this. Another proshow that’s being organised is the Crimson Curtain proshow, which has a budget of around Rs. 1 lakh.
- Dramatics Club secretary Pranav Nair said that around Rs. 15k had been spent by his club members out of pocket so far, and that preparations for Crimson Curtain had commenced as early as November 2019. SaFL secretary Arnab Mukherjee said that the club spent around Rs. 7k already on ordering costumes and various other items that they were planning to use for publicity, and during their events.
- While this is just the monetary aspect of the whole thing, tons of time and effort was put in by clubs and departments in anticipation of the fest. From pitching speakers, to make art and trailers, to creating prompts for events, a large amount of effort would simply go down the drain if Pearl were cancelled. Vishal Prabhu, DoTA head for Pearl, mentioned how almost all of the graphic design and website related work for Pearl had already been completed, and that most of the people in his department had worked for multiple hours for the fest - this situation, however, is definitely not unique to just a couple of departments.
- Aditya Agarwal, the head of Embryo, explained that most of the speakers were decided and that around Rs. 1.5lakhs would have to be spent for their flight tickets. However, neither the flight tickets, nor the accomodation have been paid for yet.
All in all, if Pearl gets cancelled, it is pretty clear that a decent bit of time, effort and money would go to waste. Thankfully, though, none of the major expenses including proshows, production and ticket booking have been made - even in the worst case, the loss is not as much as it would be if this had to be a last minute decision.
This brings us to one very interesting question - even if the decision to conduct Pearl passes in the GBM tomorrow, and Pearl work goes on full steam: what happens if the situation in Hyderabad gets worse a day or two later? Or if the government decides to ban gatherings outright, instead of just sending out advisories? While we can get away with relatively minimal losses right now, what is to say if the situation becomes worse in the next week and the administration forces us to cancel the fest a day before it is scheduled to happen, which could lead to massive losses.
Can Pearl be postponed instead?
With coronavirus appearing to have an incubation period of 1-14 days[8], many cases may not have been detected yet. Because of this, it is unlikely to disappear in the next week or two (to say the least). So we’d have to delay for a minimum of two weeks from the current date. Given the fact that we have batch-snaps, SU elections, club and department farewells, and compres coming up in the next two months, finding an empty slot to organise Pearl would be very challenging. All this, assuming that we somehow believe that COVID-19 will no longer be a problem after a week or two. There’s also the fact that we’ll need to re-contact and renegotiate timeframes with all the guests and artists again. The odds that Pearl can be postponed are in essence, negligibly poor.
If Pearl '20 is to proceed then here are a few precautions we absolutely need to be taking, both as a campus body and as a host to various other colleges including:
- We should instruct all the participants beforehand to not attend if they are feeling under the weather and have strict guidelines as to what to do if persons fall ill during Pearl.
- Wipe down all surfaces between events with disinfecting products.
- Putting up flyers reminding participants to keep washing their hands, while adding alcohol based sanitizer stations at all entry points, the registration desks, and entries of all events and food stalls.
- We could provide the participants with a package of wipes or a small bottle of hand sanitizer as soon as they register. The number of precautions that would have to be taken would be astronomically high – and those too, would have to be double-checked for redundancies and a clear emergency plan would have to be enforced, just in case.
Some of these ideas are taken from this article that discusses whether an event should be cancelled due to Coronavirus.
Commonly Overheard @ BPHC
#1: Coronavirus doesn’t affect people in our age group much anyway and people are just being paranoid.
While one can argue that the paranoia is indeed unfounded and excessive, it is reasonable to err on the side of caution in such circumstances. COVID-19 is not something we can simply dismiss just because people might be overreacting. With the number of unknowns surrounding it, one cannot simply conclude that we are all safe from COVID. And all it will take a single case on campus for everything to come crashing down. With the number of common areas students frequently gather and the close-knit nature of the hostels, any airborne disease may very well spread like wildfire. And what about the faculty and their families residing on campus, many of whom are not in the prime of health and age? If there was an outbreak here, it would hit them much harder. And even though amongst hundreds of cases, there may only be a handful of deaths, there still is going to be loss of life and simply looking at all of this statistically serves no purpose. While the risk of any infection is admittedly quite low, if it does it will be a devastating setback to many students and faculty and the reputation of this institute. Moreover, in the case people do get infected, it will be difficult to quarantine for so many people and it might end up wasting a major part of a student’s semester.
#2: Localites go home every weekend anyway- what’s the point of cancelling Pearl then? Ban/quarantine them first.
While it is true that a lot of people go home frequently, and a sizable chunk of the campus went home after the mid-semester exams, there is a major difference between going home where you would interact with a few members of your family who are sure to be fully aware of the risks of COVID-19 and Pearl where you would find yourself in very close proximity to hundreds of random people, especially during the pro shows where a mosh pit is an incredibly conducive environment for any airborne disease to spread.
And, yes. We must also look at the bigger picture, being a college that houses several thousand students from all over the country and also being located relatively close to one of the most populous cities in the country, a COVID-19 outbreak here could very well compromise the health of the entire city at the very least. And seeing how developed economies like the United States and Italy are struggling to deal with COVID, an outbreak in a densely populated city like Hyderabad with a relatively weaker public health care system may very well end up being a calamity. If this requires students not going home, this must be done as well - both Pearl and student travel off campus are a cause for concern.
Conclusion
In the end, Pearl is a fest that people on campus look forward to the most since it is the ‘party’ and ‘fun’ fest. And good money is spent on making Pearl the fest it is. Should we compromise even just a little bit on the health and well-being of the campus as a whole just to have a lot of fun? The risk of COVID infections hitting campus are very low, but it is a non-zero possibility. We can’t look at issues like this purely from a statistical basis, since numbers aren’t everything here. Each death and each infection represents an enormous amount of inconvenience and suffering. If it does hit our campus, the repercussions are far-reaching and massive - not least in the fact that a sudden increase in the number of cases could be a watershed moment for the virus in India and could quickly spiral into a situation like the one we're seeing in Italy, or worse. On the other other hand, the sheer hysteria behind this whole issue needs to be dealt with and having an honest and educated discussion is a prerequisite for the same.
We need to balance the risks with the rewards and each GB member should take an informed and educated call whether he/she wants Pearl ‘20 or not.
References
- Entire leagues postponed and questions over the Olympics: How coronavirus is causing chaos in sport
- IITD Tryst - March 6th to 8th: Cancelled
- NLS Debate Postponed
- Advisory for Universities and Colleges - UGC
- Coronavirus in India: States and cities affected, new cases and daily trends
- 2 suspected coronavirus cases in Hyderabad, building in Mindspace IT park sanitised
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html
- https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
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