Sadly, the evidence so far suggests that the Modi government does not have the capacity to think through the details of planning and execution. The responsibility is his more than anyone else’s, but state governments will also be put to test. These 21 days are Modi’s last chance to fix these two problems. The lack of widespread testing, as well as the lack of PPEs (personal protective equipment) for doctors, is a scandal. You have to be really naive to believe India’s official numbers of coronavirus patients - and then there are those who have died of sudden pneumonia without being tested or counted as coronavirus deaths. We need fast testing, cheap testing, easily available testing - and a well laid out mechanism to quarantine a person the moment she is found positive, without letting her infect others, including medical staff and family members. Sadly, Narendra Modi’s two national addresses have done little to address this concern about India not taking the mass-testing approach. That’s the only way to manage the coronavirus pandemic until we get drugs and vaccines to administer en masse.Īlso read: Modi’s Covid-19 lockdown speech shows he doesn’t learn from past mistakes, or doesn’t care to India’s 21-day national lockdown should thus be seen as buying time to create a massive testing infrastructure, so that even asymptomatic people could be tested and quarantined. Like these other countries, India could also have avoided the need for a national lockdown had it done what those countries are doing: testing, testing, testing. In other words, we are in this mess for years. A few months is a very optimistic estimate. Not until we get a vaccine, and it will take at least a few months to vaccinate every Indian even after a vaccine has been developed.
But what happens after 21 days? The virus won’t disappear after that. Since the authorities are using the word ‘curfew’ in the context of issuing passes, it is fair to call it a national curfew.Ī national curfew for 21 days will definitely go a long way in reducing the transmission of the deadly virus.
Even China, where it all started, placed only the Hubei province under complete lockdown, not the whole country.īut Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put 1.3 billion people under a curfew-like lockdown. These include Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, and Turkey. It is important to note that countries that have so far done a relatively good job of containing the coronavirus pandemic have refrained from imposing a complete, nation-wide, curfew-like lockdown.