Assessing The Vulnerability Index Of Covid-19 Pandemic In India

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has created havoc all across the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India since its beginning on 30th January 2020. As of 1st January 2021, India has recorded 10,305,788 cases and 149,218 deaths from this deadly pandemic. It has been observed through the data; across states and UTs, the trend and pattern of this disease are not similar at all. There are many reasons for these dissimilarities which are categorized into indicators to assess the vulnerability in this study. We have examined vulnerabilities in 28 states and 8 UTs of India. Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) has been applied with certain modifications to calculate the Vulnerability Index (VI). The figure resulting from the vulnerability assessment corresponds that the factors involved in the three-section exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity had a significant impact on deciding the vulnerability of the population. The result identified the states and UTs which are more vulnerable and need more attention from the government and policymakers. The proposed method of study is unique in its sense as vulnerability index calculation is purely based on a secondary source of data and therefore has an expectation of a higher degree of practical application.

Keywords

• india
• covid-19
• exposure
• sensitivity
• adaptive capacity
• population density
• vulnerability assessment