Covid-19 lockdown: What characterizes India's hotspot districts?

On April 15th, Indian government released a list of 170 districts across the country designated as coronavirus hotspots. We use these data to write an article describing hotspot (and other) districts along two broad dimensions: socio-economic characteristics and burden of Covid-related morbidities. We find that the hotspot districts are more prosperous, denser, and urban, where containing the spread may be more challenging. But there is still a considerable population of poor people in these districts who may not be able to access government social protection. The burden would also be more intense for women during social distancing due to limited access to water.

Ensuring safety of migrants key policy challenge for government (with Madhulika Khanna and Esha Zaveri)

The sudden lockdown in India left millions of its migrant workers stranded away from their homes. With the ease in restrictions, we show that as these women and men – the migrant labor -- will return to homes where social distancing will be a challenge and where they will have co-residents who are older. Their home districts are likely to be in the red zone, poorer, with lower access to clean water and with worse healthcare facilities than the rest of the country. Recognizing this and understanding the geographic heterogeneity from existing data will be an important tool for policy makers as they fight the twin battle of reopening the economy while containing the spread of Covid-19.