Beyond biomedical and statistical approaches in COVID-19: How shoe-leather public health works

The evolving COVID-19 pandemic requires that data and operational responses be examined from a public health perspective While there exist deep contestations about the epidemic control strategies to be adopted, past experience seems to be corroborated in the present epidemic that a contextually rooted “shoe-leather public health” approach provides the most effective interventions and operational strategies, more so in a society as diverse as ours Drawing from this, an analysis of the COVID-19 situation in India is put forth, and debates on mitigation strategies, optimisation of testing, and the essential steps for a comprehensive set of interventions in order to minimise human suffering are addressed © 2020 Economic and Political Weekly All rights reserved