COVID-19: Critical Analysis on lockdown

GOVERNANCE/ ECONOMY

Topic: General Studies 2:

• Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors 
• Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment. 

COVID-19: Critical Analysis on lockdown

India’s present lockdown (to prevent the spread of COVID-19) has been rated as the severest and the most disruptive, impacting a seventh of the world’s population. 

The Central government stated that in absence of lockdown, there would have been 800,000 infections by April 15th, 2020

Do You Know?

• Sweden’s strategy to fight the pandemic has been largely non-interventionist and instead dependent on voluntary social distancing. 
• Korea has followed a strategy of aggressive, widespread diagnostic testing and isolation coupled with social distancing.

Criticisms on Lockdown

• Lives vs Livelihoods: Extended lockdown negatively impacts the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable sections of society -cure should not be worse than disease
• Criticality of timing of lockdown: 
  • Early lockdowns are known to be suboptimal because they merely postpone the peak, but do not reduce the numbers
  • Many countries have imposed lockdowns only when infections peaked to levels that threatened the capacity of their healthcare systems

• Effect on Tropical Countries:  
  • There is also fair likelihood to suspect that tropical country like India may be experiencing a less virulent epidemic than seen in the west
  • This can be either due to higher natural immunity, or vastly different demographics.
  • In such case, all-out lockdown was not an efficient solution

• Efficient use of intervening time 
  • Failure to train personnel as well as procure the requisite devices, supplies and protective equipment during the lockdown will yield sub-optimal results

• Alternative Strategy- Herd Immunity

• • It is believed that viral epidemics abate only when around 60-80% of the population acquires “herd-immunity” — either by vaccination or by acquiring the disease.

• Projection Models: 
  • Several leading global health experts have questioned the numbers projected in the initial studies and forecasts as being inordinately high.

Way Forward

In place of a one-size-fits-all lockdown, there can be graded containment strategies that can be based upon following factors: 

• Geographic– depending on the varying locational intensity of the disease
• Vulnerability-oriented, with differing containment strategies for more vulnerable sections like the aged; and 
• Sectoral -with a more liberal containment regime in place for essential activities like agriculture

Connecting the dots:

• Challenges of using Herd Immunity as a Strategy
• Challenges with regard to calibrated exit to lockdown 

Source: Indian Express