‘Till We Win: India’s Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic’ review: How to fight a terror virus

Health experts on India’s COVID-19 battle and lessons for the future

It is often said of documentation, to underline the importance of that task, that if you do not record it, it never happened. While that might not strictly be true in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, painstaking documentation of the country’s journey through its rather unexpected, unprecedented battle with a single-strand RNA virus is a welcome move for the future. Indeed, every country has its own battle, but Till We Win is a valiant attempt to chronicle those very crucial early months of the pandemic. It is also valiant, because the authors are scientists who seldom write in medias res, they are more used to waiting for the results of a trial to be assessed and present a picture that attempts to be as accurate as possible. As far as we can see, the pandemic is still around, waving in and out of countries and communities, and every day, new understanding emerges and old theories are categorically busted. But then, as we have already acknowledged, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.