India's Lock-down: Success Or Failure? /Analysis

Lockdown In India

Success Or Failure?

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India has been under lockdown for about seventy days. Still, we are seeing a huge number of Covid-19  Cases showing up daily. And when we are moving to a phase called UNLOCK in such a crisis, then India's Lockdown should be classified and ranked...

(Note- This whole post is based on facts and does not mean to harm anyone's sentiments intentionally. These facts are taken from credible sources and I shall give them the 'Courtesy' too. This post does not mean to promote or demote any political party and neither classify them as inferior or superior.)

The World

When we are talking about such a crisis, then the facts of the world should be considered as an important point of classifying India in the world. A recent piece of the news shows us that some countries have been successful in eliminating Covid-19 and CoronaVirus.

Let's talk about these two countries-

1) The United States Of America

America is the country that is worst affected by the pandemic with over 2.27 million people being infected when I am writing the post out of which 121k people have died. That's a huge number. New York is the worst affected city with over 386k people being infected leaving 24, 661 dead. Lockdowns were implemented in America but these numbers clearly show that they have been a failure. 

The next country is which has been successful in eliminating or reducing the pandemic's graph to a very large extent.

2)New Zealand

New Zealand recently declared itself to be a Corona free country because no new case was diagnosed there for more than 24 days. Awareness was spread on a large scale basis while people, too, supported the lockdowns imposed in the country. The government kept everyone on the same page through consistent messaging, frequent communication, and daily press conferences. Their Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has successfully eliminated the pandemic. Tests were done widely across the country while Contact Tracing was done. 

Jacinda Ardern: Prime Minister, New Zealand

After these brief descriptions about these contrast countries based on Covid-19 cases, let's talk about India. 

India's Lockdown

Positives

We all know that 24th March 2020 was an astounding day for 1.3 billion people. From the starting of the 25the March, the world's biggest lockdown was imposed in the country.

Awareness was spread on a large scale. Daily Conferences by the Health Ministry were materialized. Many economic packages were introduced.  There is no denying in the fact that Lockdown in India prevented a very dreadful time from showing up but only for a short term. Well, we shall talk about it later. 

Negatives

Well, when in other countries Lockdown helped in reducing the peak of COVID-19 cases, the situation in India was different. India reached its peak and now, at the time I am writing this post, we are getting approximately 15 thousand cases per day. 

Moreover, India is a developing country and cannot bear the economic loss of seventy days and therefore we saw the Migrant Crisis. 

Experts believe that after imposing a lockdown, health infrastructure should have been improved in war footing which was not done. 

Had there been some more planning, the Migrant Crisis would not have occurred and their exodus to different states would have been prevented like it did in Kerala. We shall talk about solutions later in this post.

Though awareness was spread, people took this situation lightly. Comedy videos that were becoming viral (based on anything related to COVID-19) spread like Corona Virus. This, though, made people laugh in this tense situation yet this made people think that it was only a matter of time, nothing else. The mentality of some people broke lockdown and that was the main reason the virus spread even when everything was closed.

Although India’s actions on this pandemic were one of the fastest in the world, we made decisions late. India declared a lockdown when only about 600 cases were there in the country, making it in one of those countries which took steps under thousand cases. Still, people should’ve been informed of this earlier. They should’ve been told to maintain an ‘at least’ limit of social distancing. 

Daily Health Ministry Conferences were stopped on the eighth of May which were a source of maintained communication with the common people.

The next figure shows us the average number of tests conducted per ten thousand people. India is in one of the lowest countries with a testing capacity of 0.04 people per 10,000 people.

News headline showing India and other South Asian Countries testing rate per 1000 people. Where the UK has 53.53 tests per 1,000, India doesn't have even 4.

These were some of the negatives and positives of India’s lockdown. These were just facts and maybe somewhat boring for you. But we shall talk about some interesting topics under the next heading.

Solutions/My Opinion 

After, seeing the basic pros and cons of the current situation, it is important to seek solutions. These solutions are totally my personal opinions and are not given by experts or professionals. Some people might also say that I gave more negatives than positives but if we don't tell the government their mistakes, how will they solve them...

Indian lockdown was surely a disputed one where political parties always found some ways to pollute each other's environment which, I believe, is one of the most major reasons for the failure of our lockdown. We did not stand united and consequently, we fell, but not on the graph.

As I earlier said, India is a developing country and cannot afford more fifty days to remorse the lockdown's failure. The Migrant Crisis was the biggest exodus since the partition. 

The biggest solution I think of is that the first lockdown of 21 days could have been better if things were planned more accurately. I am not blaming the government or any party, I am just playing the role of an active citizen.

I think that places where Corona was out of reach, like in villages and small towns, there should’ve been a lockdown of 14-16 days to assure safety and if the area was corona-free, that they should’ve have been opened with their boundaries sealed. So, the economy that went drastically down, would not be in such a condition. The responsibility of mobility of raw materials that are essential for industries and therefore the village or town should’ve rested with the local police. With these areas opened, the exodus of migrants would’ve been on a very low scale. As of today, areas that are Corona free won’t remain for so long as people are free to travel throughout the country.

My second suggestion is related to the zones i.e. Green, Red And Orange. In my opinion, Orange Zones are of no use. These zones lie in the middle of both and therefore, it remains on the people whether to make it a green or red zone. If the people are alert about the danger and take this seriously, then only the place would transfer into a green zone. But the society I am thinking of is utopian. People never understand and neither they will. Therefore, Orange Zones should've been thought of as Red Zones. Because when you expect for the worst, then the results are far better...

This country is too big to handle. India's testing rate is low and that's obvious because we have too many people. If we check 1 lakh people each day, as per now, and isolate them, we will take 37 years to check everyone and I don't think Corona will be there for these many years. But these are dark times and the government and the parties need the support of their people. But that does not mean you don't question anything. Supporting the country means to stay at home, following the guidelines and listening to the health ministry. But we need to question the government, too, as it is us who brought these people to the throne. If we don't question them, how will they get to know the real needs, then? 

I shall also ask you all to stay at home and not to go out for an outing or unnecessary jobs. We need to break the chain. 

Coming back to lockdown, I would say, there were some defects in it and cannot be compared with those that were declared in Europe. Also, people never understood and went out without even thinking about for their family.

 

But this would be wrong to say that Lockdown was a complete failure. Many cities and states emerged as a silver lining. Like the Silicon Valley of Karnataka, Bengaluru. We all know about the Bhilwara and Kerala Model. We will have to replicate these models for the reduction in the spikes of the Corona Graph.

Therefore, maintain social distancing and help to break the chain.