With the World reeling under the effect of the dreaded Novel Coronavirus, the global sports industry has sunk into oblivion. With the Summer Olympics being postponed to 2021, most of the other European championships have also been placed on the back burner. Some of the greatest sporting nations of the world like the USA, and the Western European countries have seen the worst of the virus this time. Italy with an all-time medal tally of 577 medals at the Summer Olympics has seen over 10000 deaths in the pandemic, and the USA with an all-time medal tally of 2500 has unfortunately been victim to the same number in the Corona deaths.
But, the equation seems to be taking a diametrically opposite pattern when it comes to the South Asian Countries. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Srilanka who have always had an embarrassing count on the global medal tally, are now wondering if these numbers are of any significance at all. The casualties being recorded on account of Coronavirus have puzzled many.
Coronavirus in South Asia
| Country | Number of corona deaths as on March 30 |
| Pakistan | 20+ |
| India | 30+ |
| Srilanka | 1 |
| Nepal | 0 |
| Bangladesh | 5 |
Though the last thing on the minds of any expert would be to draw an analogy between the medal count of a country and the deaths being reported, it may still become important to analyze the commonality that exists across these countries that seems to be playing hostile to the virus and its spread and intensity. If physical strength and prowess was an indicator, it has been proved wrong by countries that have shown it on the sporting arena where both these get tested in every competition.
Two things which are common to all the South Asian countries, which the other advanced countries do not have and perhaps never wished to have are
- a) Hot and humid climatic conditions and
- b) Bacterial and mosquito-borne diseases like typhoid, malaria & dengue
It is definitely now up to the health experts of the world to analyze if the South Asian mosquito is giving a tough fight to the Chinese bat in the biggest war game of the World!
It certainly seems like countries with not much to boast about in global sports will soon be ready to resume their national sports, and now perhaps look at the whole medal tally with a different perspective.
A 21-day lock-down perhaps is not the privilege of other South Asian countries, but if the same trend of corona casualties continues in these countries despite being unable to have a lock-down, it may throw up a whole set of unanswered questions at the end of the 21 days lock-down period in India.
Whatever the analysis may be, the sports industry and the athlete is rearing to get back to normalcy!
