Did the nationwide lockdowns since March 25, 2020 helped India curb the rapid spread of the dreaded Covid 19? This only time will tell, however, it is undeniable that at the time it seemed the best option to ensure people’s safety considering how the disease was wreaking havoc globally with even the most advanced nations staring in abyss as Coronavirus steadily decimated its victims.
But after almost three months of near global shutdown resulting in deeper economic crisis, governments have gradually started opening their economies. The government of India while observing lockdown 4.0 has also started easing restrictions to re-start economic activities and post May 31, it will take a fresh look at the strategy as there is no let up in Covid-19 crisis with cases continuing to spike menacingly figuring at 1.55 lakh and around 4,500 deaths in the country. India stands at number 10 among the worst Covid-hit nations.
The commercial hub Mumbai in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu being the worst have so far failed to check the spread and there are no signs of flattening the curve. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have to be blamed for under preparation besides other reasons.
Top medical expert and AIIMS Director Dr R.K. Guleria says the peak will happen till June end but we are certainly better prepared to fight the pandemic with gradual improvement in the health infrastructural facilities.
The Government of India still claims “It is perhaps due to the restraint exercised by the citizens, guided by the cautious and meticulous approach that despite being the second most populous country, the contagion has been contained to a number that is significantly lower than in many other nations”. The lockdown that came into effect on March 25 has led to minimal incidence of the pandemic.
“Bearing in mind the slowing down of the rate at which the cases were doubling, the measures that have helped and are likely to strengthen our hands further in the fight against COVID-19 merit attention”, a top government official claims.
On a day former Congress president Rahul Gandhi attacked the government that lockdown had been a failure, the Chief Economic Adviser Dr Krishnamurthy Subramanian, in an interview to NDTV, strongly defended the lockdown saying “what if we hadn’t had the lockdown, we may have had about 70,000 deaths and lakhs of cases.”
Experts argue India with 1.4 billion population can not be equated with countries like Sweden with just over one crore population or South Korea with five crores plus where better healthcare infrastructure coupled with health protocols like hand hygiene, social distancing helped them cope up with the crisis in initial days. Developed countries across the world fought the pandemic with different strategies and even US, which tops the tally of Corona pandemic both in infection and deaths, completely failed to control it.
At a time when millions of people have been displaced, businesses shuttered, educational institutions closed, hotels and restaurants shut and job losses, the lockdown looked like a problem for country’s economy but keeping in mind the available health infrastructure the government perhaps had no option but to go for it to slow down the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the poor have been hit like never before and the states and Centre were caught napping with reversef in large numbers. Pandemic is being tackled on mathematical models, which show a peak and then flattening of the curve. India is yet to witness peak – till June end hence precautions were necessary and gradual restoration of the economic activities is the only way to tackle the dual crisis.
India’s overall ‘cluster-containment’ strategy has certainly done better to possible large scale spread but states like Kerala, Rajasthan, Oddisa and Uttar Pradesh, due to their better preparedness and strategy, proved as model states in the country. Kerala based on their SARS experience flattened the curve via the creation of a contagion route map while Odisha’s susceptibility to natural disaster gave it an advantage in crisis preparedness.
The communist run government was first to open the economic activity. Rajasthan’s Bhilwara containment strategy proved as a model for others while Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest populous state, prepared well with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath forming Team-11 of top bureaucrats who guided him well to face the challenge.
It is easy to criticize any strategy but Union Health Ministry has to be complimented for preparing a strategic approach taking into account different possible scenarios – travel-related cases, local transmission of COVID-19, large outbreaks amenable to containment, and widespread community transmission of COVID-19.
As lockdown restrictions eases, economic activities begin, domestic travel resumes in a calibrated manner and hotels, restaurants open up the only thing that can hopefully help minimize the Covid-19 spread is strict adherence to health protocols. Lockdowns or not, mask, gloves, sanitizers and social distancing are the only way to beat the virus.
