Modi should go. We have had enough of a mess created in India ever since he came to power in 2014. The successive mismanagements of the needless Demonetisation, then the confusion created by GST which today the Centre is not adhering to and finally the disaster of the COVID19 that has led to massive suffering and the unnecessary loss of life. Everything that he has touched and tried to do in his stint since becoming PM has come unstuck. The famous hug that Modi used to employ while greeting the mostly top leaders of the world has been repaid by Xi of China by stabbing him in the back. With Abe of Japan retiring from public life the relations with Japan will have to be cultivated all over again. With Britain changing Prime Ministers we will have to start from Ground Zero with Boris Johnson even divorcing his Indian origin wife. In France Macron is beset with his own problems. In Germany Merkel gets her famous fainting fits when you mention Modi. Closer home the enmity with Pakistan is being honed to a fine sharpness with Modi thankfully learning that he needs to stay away from that country. Nepal is looking the other way towards China at the mention of India. With Bangladesh we have only barter deals like hilsa for onions etc. and disputes on Ganga water sharing. Sri Lanka has a more stridently nationalist government exemplifying complete family rule. Inside the country we have lately seen a complete lack of imagination in the handling of the COVID19 pandemic where in a short while we will lead the charts worldwide in terms of the number of infections, in terms of the high recovery rate and the low death rate. However, the principal focus should have been to 'lock out' the virus at the individual level rather than completely 'lockdown' the country. This approach would have seen lower infections and a faster return to normalcy of our economy and our society. As for cushioning the impact of the pandemic on the economy and provide succour to the people this government has been found absolutely lacking. It makes a lot about limited superficial measures like giving free rations to families and meagre sums given to Jan Dhan account holders when other countries around the world have done much more for its people, trade and industry. The approach to assistance to the people of India can be equated of kneading dough with a tight fist and then passing out to others only that limited amount that squeezes out between the fingers. With a Finance Minister like Nirmala Sitharaman this has struck a chord and nothing much has been done to bail out the people of this country during these pandemic times when millions of jobs have been lost. Within the country despite the spread of the pandemic, law and order is a concern with Kashmir remaining on the boil, UP continuing to be the rape capital of India and other parts of the country in turmoil in the wake of the pandemic and also for other reasons. Democracy has been forsaken with the ordinance route being taken for most laws and passed later without much discussions and debate. And lately democracy has been murdered on the floor of the august house during the passing of the three farm laws to regularise ordinances. Democracy has to be understood by those practising it as the ability to convince and reassure people mostly the Opposition and the lay public before you act on any measure or legislation. But what we are seeing with the present government is that they act first and then seek to convince later in a 'we know better than you' and 'we know what is good for you' modes. Such modus operandi are not the characteristics of a thriving and vibrant democracy but exercising your power by throwing your weight around through the brute force of an electoral majority. We have seen this methodology during Demonetisation and later including the present mismanagement of the COVID19 pandemic where close to 100,000 deaths have occurred. For a lesser scale of fatalities, charges of genocide are brought against country's leaders. So also Modi should be charged with genocide for leading the people of this country like the Pied Piper of Hamelin over the COVID19 cliff to their deaths. Or maybe we have to wait for the genocide charge to be brought against his buddy, Donald Trump in the US which is leading the world in COVID19 also with more than 200,000 deaths. There was a time in India when leaders felt accountable when things went wrong in the portfolios that they helmed and in the event of a major disaster/debacle, these leaders like Lal Bahadur Shastri and Gulzarilal Nanda and even some latter day leaders, the names of whom one forgets, would resign. So also should Modi resign accepting the mess he has created in handling the COVID19 pandemic which has created so much distress and trauma in people's lives.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Harsh Vardhan should understand that the buck stops with him as far as handling the COVID19 pandemic : 25 Sept 2020
Harsh Vardhan, our Health Minister at the Centre has blamed 'irresponsible societal behaviour' for the recent spurt in COVID19 cases while speaking in the Lok Sabha. If there has been anyone who has been irresponsible, it is Vardhan's government and he, himself the nodal person to fight the pandemic in the country. This is typical of the leaders in the present government who have been quick to take credit for any achievements but the moment things start going wrong, they start playing the blame game and look for scapegoats. There is no doubt that society at large are also responsible but the larger responsibility is the government’s. Why was mass media not used more extensively to educate people to protect themselves, to convince them that government testing is safe and correct, to disperse the social stigma about those testing +ve and COVID patients and even those who come back to their community after being cured? Vardhan being a doctor himself did not see the merit of enhancing individual protection even after the deaths of doctors and health personnel from the virus after contracting it while on duty. Apart from masks and/or face shields why was not gloves, a stripped down PPE in the format of a burqa or shroud covering you completely not made mandatory when one saw the rampant spread of the virus? This increased protection would have reduced the new infected cases easily by at least 50%. The health system infrastructure would have had lesser of a load to deal with making their job a little easier and more importantly there would been a lower death toll considering the higher than 70% recovery rate. Clarity on the multiplicity of tests and the varying costs of these and the fact that test results are correct would have given the public the much needed confidence about the testing process and the need would have been felt for reporting for tests when they had the first symptoms. Now what is happening is that people are avoiding to acknowledge that they have symptoms for fear of social and community stigma and reporting to hospitals when the symptoms have aggravated, resulting in patients being brought dead or increasing the mortality rate. As for figures, we need to realise that it is in the interest of the government to report a lower positivity rate as also the number of deaths and a higher recovery rate. But all said and done these figures are managed and in reality the positivity and mortality rate could be higher and the recovery rate lower. The figures also lose meaning in the context of what the present government puts out starting from GDP onwards have always been suspect and no one believes these figures nationally or internationally. But overall shame for the country is that the number of infections are close to being the highest in the world inspite our having probably the largest number of health care personnel in the world, which Harsh Vardhan is trying to conveniently avoid. He is also exposing that he knows little about the people of his country in the context of what is needed to be done in the face of the pandemic. The fact that our people are not disciplined, lack patience and think more about themselves than of the community is lost on our leaders like Harsh Vardhan. What the people needed was more education about the virus, its implications on the individual and the community and clear indications about what would happen to them if they do not follow the given guidelines. Our leaders starting from the PM onwards live in their ivory towers and are far removed from reality which is why the implementation of any measure taken up by the present government is marred with blunders and glitches. Time enough therefore to have a crash course for all our political leaders, not necessarily of the present government alone, to work in the trenches and be aware of ground realities. Thus Harsh Vardhan should understand that the buck stops with him as far as handling the COVID19 pandemic and he should stop playing the blame game. Moreover, he has been given the mandate now to lead WHO for which surely he has to go with an enlarged and open-minded mindset. In the absence of this what we are seeing is the lathi ghoomane ka or the pompous and aggressive approach signifying that we know what's best for you and follow our strictures without question. Reverting back to the COVID19 scene, whether it is Donald Trump or his tabalchi Modi, both have not yet directly accused China of unleashing this virus at their countries or across the world to show its power with an agenda for world hegemony since with both the US & India struggling to contain the virus China has been sitting pretty having won over the war against the virus. But mark my words it will come well before the US elections in November if his recent pre-recorded speech at the UN General Assembly is any indicator when Trump will directly accuse China of unleashing the virus on the world and for voters to elect him as a strong and aggressive President to take on China. Modi will then follow Trump with an encore to boot. That then will be the ultimate blame game.
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Complete Mismanagement Of The COVID19 Pandemic In India
We have both a vacuum and a vacuity in leadership in India presently. This is being stated the context of the COVID19 pandemic that is sweeping the country. With one of the largest pool of medical personnel in the world, in a short while we will be topping the charts in the number of cases infected by the virus in the world overtaking the US in a few weeks from now. Where China was able to contain the virus, India has miserably failed because of the lack of leadership quality in our government.
This is seen in the faulty methods on how to handle the virus and in choosing wrong measures of containment and the incorrect timing of implementation of these measures. At the first level we failed to recognise that the individual is at the frontline of the exposure to the virus. If we protect him then we are likely to see lesser spread of the infection and fewer COVID +ve cases. This would reduce the load on the health system both personnel and infrastructure like doctors, nursing staff, testing personnel and hospital beds etc. ultimately reducing the number of deaths as we are seeing now. Along with the mask/face shields,everyone should have been mandated to wear gloves, stripped down PPE's in the format of a shroud or burqa covering you from head to toe and overshoes (optional). This would have dramatically reduced the rate of new infections which are currently touching 1 lakh per day. One does not understand why the government was unable to see the simple logic in this argument. Just like the mask has become a fashion statement by now, the shroud or burqa would have seen various designs and brought out many pleasing variations to be seen in our streets. Was this extra protection not mandated because of the fear of being different from the rest of the world? Since everyone around the world was wearing masks we went along with the herd and asked our people to wear masks only. We should have done what is best to protect our people from the virus. The same scenario is playing out again while opening up of the economy where we are possibly not looking at the safety of our people but since the West has opened up, we should also open up! The ground situations in the West and in India are different so we should do what is needed in India and if we have to delay opening up, then we should do that or open up region wise or sector wise and slowly.
The same logic related to the lockdowns where India played 'follow the leader' of the West in deciding that the best way to 'break the chain' of the virus was by lockdowns. The lockdowns as we have seen did not work since in India they were porous and since everyone here has a reason to flout and break a rule either by the maxim that 'might is right' or by pulling privilege. Thus in India the virus chain was never broken and it continued to dribble out here and there. So how could the virus be stopped? Thus the virus made merry and galloped to its present status today where we are at close to 5 million infections at around 1 lakh a day.
Looking at the pace of the spread right from the PM and other leaders have given up the fight against the COVD19 virus and the Indian populace is in the hands of God! These leaders are not ashamed that they have brought the country to this kind of a pass where we lead the world in the number of infections. Modi is understood to have complimented Trump in the latter's fight against the virus. It is like one loser giving kudos to another with both topping the virus charts at No. 1 & 2. We are spared little mercies since Modi has yet not used Trump-ian logic that we are moving to become the highest infected country in the world because we are brave and fighting on the frontlines of the war against the virus. And what about the people of India who are more than 60% poor and illiterate who will be dying from the virus, not knowing what they are suffering from, with no medicines and no one to take care of them in terms of professional help since they fear going to the hospitals because of the social stigma associated with the virus and worried about the high cost of treatment. Do these people deserve to die? Is this the leadership that we sent to government to look after us. This smacks of complete irresponsibility. Vacuity at its worst.
And what has the government been doing, once having found that they have failed to stem the rot in terms of the rampaging virus, it has turned on its media apparatus to show that it has been 'doing its best' and touting figures which convey no meaning to the suffering people who have tested +ve or are sick with the virus. They are saying that the recovery rate which at one point of time they said above 72% recovery means we are winning the war against the virus, while today it is at 77% if we are able to believe the government figures. But the virus has shown that it is winning. As for the lowest death rate, what solace does it give to the person dying from the virus? The government also tried to justify the rapidly climbing infection rate with the claim that testing had been increased which threw up more infected, that the recent festivals led to more mingling of people and the third cause being, the opening up of the economy. At the same time the common people are giving up the belief in the tests since half the time they are wrong. The government further got the Indian Medical Council to put out the results of the Sero Survey done in April 2020 which put out figures that by May 2020 already 6 million Indians had the virus in them. This is complete humbug since the figures match the current infected numbers and seem to be put just to whitewash the government image to justify that the virus was already there and nothing much could have been done to reduce the number of infections. The new story that is being put out is that the containment of the virus is not possible and that we should focus on limiting the number of deaths and try saving lives. There could also be a disturbing reason for pandering to the pandemic by our politicians since in India they want the people to be dependent on them and keep coming to them given the education level which is why the pandemic has been allowed to spread. But this is a dangerous game since the consequence is death, the number of which cannot be estimated in advance. The continuing pandemic benefits everyone who are bent upon making money from it at the cost of suffering people like the private health care system who have been fleecing patients, consultants who keep popping up giving you advice on how to deal with the virus etc. etc.
Thus one would suggest that the government put its head down and apply it to the task at hand which is to control the virus and get rid of it like China has done. Half measures like those that India has followed were also used across Europe where the compulsions of opening up were given priority and in almost every country starting from the UK, France etc. we are seeing a resurgence of cases. Thus it is best that we adopt a dual pronged strategy of providing enhanced protection at the individual level as enumerated earlier and the other strategies employed now so that new cases are minimised and a manageable case load is thrust upon our overstretched health infrastructure of both personnel and facilities. Otherwise by Jan 2021 we will be seeing people dying like flies on the Indian streets akin to the scenes of the bubonic plague that spread through Europe in the Middle Ages. This government has to also own responsibility for complete mismanagement of the COVID19 pandemic and to allow it to grow to monstrous proportions. We have seen during the initial days of Demonetisation people would be thronging banks to exchange the old notes and/or withdraw cash and now in the COVID19 pandemic time we will be having people thronging hospitals in same numbers to seek treatment from the virus. And the most disappointing part is that when we have crisises plaguing the country we never see the PM on the frontlines of the action and he is strangely silent and there is not a single word from him on the way forward for dealing with the pandemic. This clearly is the nadir of leadership that we have to put up with.
Monday, September 14, 2020
India's Economy Adrift During The Pandemic
India’s Economy Adrift During The Pandemic
The management of the COVID 19 pandemic by our government has been bad but the management of the economy facing the consequences of the pandemic has been worse. Every single economist in the country knows that after the Ganesha festival in Aug - Sept the economy sees an upswing in demand as the festivals ring in one after another across the country with the Durga Puja, Diwali and then Christmas and New Year coming in. Festivals means people mingle believing that their faith in God overcomes all obstructions, difficulties and that they get an immunity shield against disease. With people mingling the pandemic will gain momentum and spread which is what is happening precisely now. Other than that it was predicted that the pandemic would peak around the world in the Aug - Dec time span and right at the beginning of this surge we have Unlock - 4 of India ignoring the danger of the spread of the virus but pompously touting that the Indian economy and society cannot remain shut any longer. But what did our government do about the economy in the face of the pandemic and to lessen its impact on the people. There were no tangible benefits which were offered to the people that would help them tide over the crisis and stand on their own feet. Just giving free rations of food grains and trickles of money once in a while into the Jan Dhan accounts is just not enough. Sustained support was required when people are faced with situations like the current pandemic which reassures the people that the government is behind them with help and support so that they can build their lives all over again and stand on their own feet. The pandemic has affected all strata of society and just catering to the BPL and near BPL segment of society and those with Jan Dhan accounts is not enough. There has been a major loss of jobs in all sectors of industry and those providing services. This category of people also require support but the government has not even looked at them. As for industry much was made out about what the government is doing for the MSME sector but the initiatives turned out to be a raw deal. The common refrain of the government is to make everyone atmanirbhar, they want everyone to take a loan and then the government will give you an interest subsidy. This is absolutely insane logic where by analogy if a hungry person comes to you for food, you tell him I will give you a loan but I will charge you a lower interest. With this kind of thinking, it is no wonder that our banks and financial institutions are reeling under NPA's. It is not only that but the government in its wisdom accepted that the pandemic has affected industry and so said that it is declaring a moratorium for 6 months at the outset on loan instalment payments. With the moratorium period getting almost over, the industry are finding that the financial institutions are charging interest on the loans during the moratorium period. Is there any meaning to such kind of initiatives which negate the very purpose why the initiative was given in the first place. The matter has gone to the Supreme Court now which was unnecessary if the government had thought out a well constructed plan to help industry. Our Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman is completely out of her depth to serve in that position and needs to thank the pandemic for continuing on the job because the planned Cabinet reshuffles have been shelved for the time being. Thus during the pandemic the country's economy continues to aimlessly drift like a ship which has lost its engines on the high seas in the midst of a storm.
Saturday, September 12, 2020
For God's Sake, Increase Individual Protection To Fight COVID : 16 July 2020
The formatting for the16 July 2020 content was disturbed and hence re-posting same.
For God's Sake, Increase Individual Protection To Fight COVID : 16 July 2020
The papers are full of the increasing cases of the corona virus across India with the adding of 1 lakh cases in just 3 days. This scenario is alarming with active cases from the infection likely to touch 1 million in the next few days. It is apparent that the top people in government are clueless on the spread of the virus or are deliberately misleading the people. They continue to tout figures of death rate being the lowest inspite of death due to co-morbidities, the recovery rate being the highest in India. All this when compared to the world. The increase in testing and the strategies employed on lockdowns, containment zones etc. etc. This list is long and elaborate but the fact remains that all these measures have not been able to stem the new infections which continue to rise and are random in their spread. It is getting to be 4 months since we had the beginning of the lockdowns but we are in the same position or worse than what we were on the first day. Thus we need to conclude that lockdowns do not work in societal structures like in India. These may be OK for Western societies where dwelling units are relatively segregated and not like in our slums or close housing communities where people are clustered together. Moreover in Western societies people tend to be more disciplined, even Indians who live there, and follow guidelines given by the authorities. While here the guidelines are followed in the exception than by the rule of willingness. Though one must say that the mask rule is being more generally followed. Even then the mask has not proved useful, since its protection is only for namesake and has failed to stop the spread of new infections. The dithering of the government in dealing with the pandemic is letting the people be exposed to greater risk and leaving them direction-less as to how to deal with the virus. The people left to their own assumptions will result in the number of infections to continue to rise. Pandering to the pandemic and massaging it to remain spreading is good politics and provides good opportunities for vested interests to make money in terms of getting the people and government to spend money on protection measures and infrastructure, while people to continue to die from the virus. Whether these measures and infrastructure are necessary or work or not to combat the virus is debatable. Thus there is no need to emphasise that the number of new infections need to be controlled under the present circumstances of the Unlock guidelines which will lead to less pressure on the health administration system. And this can only be done by increasing the protection of individuals. Therefore why the government is not mandating that all citizens when they come out in public should wear face shields, stripped down and adapted PPE's, gloves and also overshoes, the last item being optional, is not understood. The cost of stripped down and adapted PPE's can be all the way down to Rs. 100. They can also be made from weather friendly material and will set off a trend for designing such gear As is happening in mask design. Thus it is not a financial burden for the individual to buy 2/3 sets. Where people can get away by not wearing masks and escape getting caught, it will not be easy for them to do that by not wearing the PPE's and other protective gear since it is more visible. The authorities should be strict in penalising offenders who do not wear the full protective gear with fines. This enhanced protection will definitely reduce the incidence of more infections and be good for the people since it will help in getting back to the normal way of life. With this the government will be relieved from the unnecessary multifarious questions like providing financial assistance to different categories of people, whether to open educational institutions, to hold school/college exams or not, to limit the number of staff in offices etc.etc. Therefore it is time enough we implemented this measure of mandating the wearing of increased personal protection like face shields, stripped down and adapted PPE's, gloves and also overshoes, the last item being optional, urgently, otherwise India will go the way that Brazil & the US has gone in terms of the impact of the virus. One hopes that better sense will prevail within the government or one has to assume that the government is tacitly promoting herd immunity which exposes our lesser privileged communities to infection with more people dying in this category but with no guarantee that the virus will not infect the more privileged class.
Coronavirus COVID19 Chronology In India
Modi Should Quit : 29 Sept 2020
Modi should go. We have had enough of a mess created in India ever since he came to power in 2014. The successive mismanagements of the needless Demonetisation, then the confusion created by GST which today the Centre is not adhering to and finally the disaster of the COVID19 that has led to massive suffering and the unnecessary loss of life. Everything that he has touched and tried to do in his stint since becoming PM has come unstuck. The famous hug that Modi used to employ while greeting the mostly top leaders of the world has been repaid by Xi of China by stabbing him in the back. With Abe of Japan retiring from public life the relations with Japan will have to be cultivated all over again. With Britain changing Prime Ministers we will have to start from Ground Zero with Boris Johnson even divorcing his Indian origin wife. In France Macron is beset with his own problems. In Germany Merkel gets her famous fainting fits when you mention Modi. Closer home the enmity with Pakistan is being honed to a fine sharpness with Modi thankfully learning that he needs to stay away from that country. Nepal is looking the other way towards China at the mention of India. With Bangladesh we have only barter deals like hilsa for onions etc. and disputes on Ganga water sharing. Sri Lanka has a more stridently nationalist government exemplifying complete family rule. Inside the country we have lately seen a complete lack of imagination in the handling of the COVID19 pandemic where in a short while we will lead the charts worldwide in terms of the number of infections, in terms of the high recovery rate and the low death rate. However, the principal focus should have been to 'lock out' the virus at the individual level rather than completely 'lockdown' the country. This approach would have seen lower infections and a faster return to normalcy of our economy and our society. As for cushioning the impact of the pandemic on the economy and provide succour to the people this government has been found absolutely lacking. It makes a lot about limited superficial measures like giving free rations to families and meagre sums given to Jan Dhan account holders when other countries around the world have done much more for its people, trade and industry. The approach to assistance to the people of India can be equated of kneading dough with a tight fist and then passing out to others only that limited amount that squeezes out between the fingers. With a Finance Minister like Nirmala Sitharaman this has struck a chord and nothing much has been done to bail out the people of this country during these pandemic times when millions of jobs have been lost. Within the country despite the spread of the pandemic, law and order is a concern with Kashmir remaining on the boil, UP continuing to be the rape capital of India and other parts of the country in turmoil in the wake of the pandemic and also for other reasons. Democracy has been forsaken with the ordinance route being taken for most laws and passed later without much discussions and debate. And lately democracy has been murdered on the floor of the august house during the passing of the three farm laws to regularise ordinances. Democracy has to be understood by those practising it as the ability to convince and reassure people mostly the Opposition and the lay public before you act on any measure or legislation. But what we are seeing with the present government is that they act first and then seek to convince later in a 'we know better than you' and 'we know what is good for you' modes. Such modus operandi are not the characteristics of a thriving and vibrant democracy but exercising your power by throwing your weight around through the brute force of an electoral majority. We have seen this methodology during Demonetisation and later including the present mismanagement of the COVID19 pandemic where close to 100,000 deaths have occurred. For a lesser scale of fatalities, charges of genocide are brought against country's leaders. So also Modi should be charged with genocide for leading the people of this country like the Pied Piper of Hamelin over the COVID19 cliff to their deaths. Or maybe we have to wait for the genocide charge to be brought against his buddy, Donald Trump in the US which is leading the world in COVID19 also with more than 200,000 deaths. There was a time in India when leaders felt accountable when things went wrong in the portfolios that they helmed and in the event of a major disaster/debacle, these leaders like Lal Bahadur Shastri and Gulzarilal Nanda and even some latter day leaders, the names of whom one forgets, would resign. So also should Modi resign accepting the mess he has created in handling the COVID19 pandemic which has created so much distress and trauma in people's lives.
Harsh Vardhan should understand that the buck stops with him as far as handling the COVID19 pandemic : 25 Sept 2020
Harsh Vardhan, our Health Minister at the Centre has blamed 'irresponsible societal behaviour' for the recent spurt in COVID19 cases while speaking in the Lok Sabha. If there has been anyone who has been irresponsible, it is Vardhan's government and he, himself the nodal person to fight the pandemic in the country. This is typical of the leaders in the present government who have been quick to take credit for any achievements but the moment things start going wrong, they start playing the blame game and look for scapegoats. There is no doubt that society at large are also responsible but the larger responsibility is the government’s. Why was mass media not used more extensively to educate people to protect themselves, to convince them that government testing is safe and correct, to disperse the social stigma about those testing +ve and COVID patients and even those who come back to their community after being cured? Vardhan being a doctor himself did not see the merit of enhancing individual protection even after the deaths of doctors and health personnel from the virus after contracting it while on duty. Apart from masks and/or face shields why was not gloves, a stripped down PPE in the format of a burqa or shroud covering you completely not made mandatory when one saw the rampant spread of the virus? This increased protection would have reduced the new infected cases easily by at least 50%. The health system infrastructure would have had lesser of a load to deal with making their job a little easier and more importantly there would been a lower death toll considering the higher than 70% recovery rate. Clarity on the multiplicity of tests and the varying costs of these and the fact that test results are correct would have given the public the much needed confidence about the testing process and the need would have been felt for reporting for tests when they had the first symptoms. Now what is happening is that people are avoiding to acknowledge that they have symptoms for fear of social and community stigma and reporting to hospitals when the symptoms have aggravated, resulting in patients being brought dead or increasing the mortality rate. As for figures, we need to realise that it is in the interest of the government to report a lower positivity rate as also the number of deaths and a higher recovery rate. But all said and done these figures are managed and in reality the positivity and mortality rate could be higher and the recovery rate lower. The figures also lose meaning in the context of what the present government puts out starting from GDP onwards have always been suspect and no one believes these figures nationally or internationally. But overall shame for the country is that the number of infections are close to being the highest in the world inspite our having probably the largest number of health care personnel in the world, which Harsh Vardhan is trying to conveniently avoid. He is also exposing that he knows little about the people of his country in the context of what is needed to be done in the face of the pandemic. The fact that our people are not disciplined, lack patience and think more about themselves than of the community is lost on our leaders like Harsh Vardhan. What the people needed was more education about the virus, its implications on the individual and the community and clear indications about what would happen to them if they do not follow the given guidelines. Our leaders starting from the PM onwards live in their ivory towers and are far removed from reality which is why the implementation of any measure taken up by the present government is marred with blunders and glitches. Time enough therefore to have a crash course for all our political leaders, not necessarily of the present government alone, to work in the trenches and be aware of ground realities. Thus Harsh Vardhan should understand that the buck stops with him as far as handling the COVID19 pandemic and he should stop playing the blame game. Moreover, he has been given the mandate now to lead WHO for which surely he has to go with an enlarged and open-minded mindset. In the absence of this what we are seeing is the lathi ghoomane ka or the pompous and aggressive approach signifying that we know what's best for you and follow our strictures without question. Reverting back to the COVID19 scene, whether it is Donald Trump or his tabalchi Modi, both have not yet directly accused China of unleashing this virus at their countries or across the world to show its power with an agenda for world hegemony since with both the US & India struggling to contain the virus China has been sitting pretty having won over the war against the virus. But mark my words it will come well before the US elections in November if his recent pre-recorded speech at the UN General Assembly is any indicator when Trump will directly accuse China of unleashing the virus on the world and for voters to elect him as a strong and aggressive President to take on China. Modi will then follow Trump with an encore to boot. That then will be the ultimate blame game.
Harsh Vardhan, our Health Minister at the Centre has blamed 'irresponsible societal behaviour' for the recent spurt in COVID19 cases while speaking in the Lok Sabha. If there has been anyone who has been irresponsible, it is Vardhan's government and he, himself the nodal person to fight the pandemic in the country. This is typical of the leaders in the present government who have been quick to take credit for any achievements but the moment things start going wrong, they start playing the blame game and look for scapegoats. There is no doubt that society at large are also responsible but the larger responsibility is the government’s. Why was mass media not used more extensively to educate people to protect themselves, to convince them that government testing is safe and correct, to disperse the social stigma about those testing +ve and COVID patients and even those who come back to their community after being cured? Vardhan being a doctor himself did not see the merit of enhancing individual protection even after the deaths of doctors and health personnel from the virus after contracting it while on duty. Apart from masks and/or face shields why was not gloves, a stripped down PPE in the format of a burqa or shroud covering you completely not made mandatory when one saw the rampant spread of the virus? This increased protection would have reduced the new infected cases easily by at least 50%. The health system infrastructure would have had lesser of a load to deal with making their job a little easier and more importantly there would been a lower death toll considering the higher than 70% recovery rate. Clarity on the multiplicity of tests and the varying costs of these and the fact that test results are correct would have given the public the much needed confidence about the testing process and the need would have been felt for reporting for tests when they had the first symptoms. Now what is happening is that people are avoiding to acknowledge that they have symptoms for fear of social and community stigma and reporting to hospitals when the symptoms have aggravated, resulting in patients being brought dead or increasing the mortality rate. As for figures, we need to realise that it is in the interest of the government to report a lower positivity rate as also the number of deaths and a higher recovery rate. But all said and done these figures are managed and in reality the positivity and mortality rate could be higher and the recovery rate lower. The figures also lose meaning in the context of what the present government puts out starting from GDP onwards have always been suspect and no one believes these figures nationally or internationally. But overall shame for the country is that the number of infections are close to being the highest in the world inspite our having probably the largest number of health care personnel in the world, which Harsh Vardhan is trying to conveniently avoid. He is also exposing that he knows little about the people of his country in the context of what is needed to be done in the face of the pandemic. The fact that our people are not disciplined, lack patience and think more about themselves than of the community is lost on our leaders like Harsh Vardhan. What the people needed was more education about the virus, its implications on the individual and the community and clear indications about what would happen to them if they do not follow the given guidelines. Our leaders starting from the PM onwards live in their ivory towers and are far removed from reality which is why the implementation of any measure taken up by the present government is marred with blunders and glitches. Time enough therefore to have a crash course for all our political leaders, not necessarily of the present government alone, to work in the trenches and be aware of ground realities. Thus Harsh Vardhan should understand that the buck stops with him as far as handling the COVID19 pandemic and he should stop playing the blame game. Moreover, he has been given the mandate now to lead WHO for which surely he has to go with an enlarged and open-minded mindset. In the absence of this what we are seeing is the lathi ghoomane ka or the pompous and aggressive approach signifying that we know what's best for you and follow our strictures without question. Reverting back to the COVID19 scene, whether it is Donald Trump or his tabalchi Modi, both have not yet directly accused China of unleashing this virus at their countries or across the world to show its power with an agenda for world hegemony since with both the US & India struggling to contain the virus China has been sitting pretty having won over the war against the virus. But mark my words it will come well before the US elections in November if his recent pre-recorded speech at the UN General Assembly is any indicator when Trump will directly accuse China of unleashing the virus on the world and for voters to elect him as a strong and aggressive President to take on China. Modi will then follow Trump with an encore to boot. That then will be the ultimate blame game.
Complete Mismanagement Of The COVID19 Pandemic In India : 16 Sept 2020
We have both a vacuum and a vacuity in leadership in India presently. This is being stated the context of the COVID19 pandemic that is sweeping the country. With one of the largest pool of medical personnel in the world, in a short while we will be topping the charts in the number of cases infected by the virus in the world overtaking the US in a few weeks from now. Where China was able to contain the virus, India has miserably failed because of the lack of leadership quality in our government.
This is seen in the faulty methods on how to handle the virus and in choosing wrong measures of containment and the incorrect timing of implementation of these measures. At the first level we failed to recognise that the individual is at the frontline of the exposure to the virus. If we protect him then we are likely to see lesser spread of the infection and fewer COVID +ve cases. This would reduce the load on the health system both personnel and infrastructure like doctors, nursing staff, testing personnel and hospital beds etc. ultimately reducing the number of deaths as we are seeing now. Along with the mask/face shields,everyone should have been mandated to wear gloves, stripped down PPE's in the format of a shroud or burqa covering you from head to toe and overshoes (optional). This would have dramatically reduced the rate of new infections which are currently touching 1 lakh per day. One does not understand why the government was unable to see the simple logic in this argument. Just like the mask has become a fashion statement by now, the shroud or burqa would have seen various designs and brought out many pleasing variations to be seen in our streets. Was this extra protection not mandated because of the fear of being different from the rest of the world? Since everyone around the world was wearing masks we went along with the herd and asked our people to wear masks only. We should have done what is best to protect our people from the virus. The same scenario is playing out again while opening up of the economy where we are possibly not looking at the safety of our people but since the West has opened up, we should also open up! The ground situations in the West and in India are different so we should do what is needed in India and if we have to delay opening up, then we should do that or open up region wise or sector wise and slowly.
The same logic related to the lockdowns where India played 'follow the leader' of the West in deciding that the best way to 'break the chain' of the virus was by lockdowns. The lockdowns as we have seen did not work since in India they were porous and since everyone here has a reason to flout and break a rule either by the maxim that 'might is right' or by pulling privilege. Thus in India the virus chain was never broken and it continued to dribble out here and there. So how could the virus be stopped? Thus the virus made merry and galloped to its present status today where we are at close to 5 million infections at around 1 lakh a day.
Looking at the pace of the spread right from the PM and other leaders have given up the fight against the COVD19 virus and the Indian populace is in the hands of God! These leaders are not ashamed that they have brought the country to this kind of a pass where we lead the world in the number of infections. Modi is understood to have complimented Trump in the latter's fight against the virus. It is like one loser giving kudos to another with both topping the virus charts at No. 1 & 2. We are spared little mercies since Modi has yet not used Trump-ian logic that we are moving to become the highest infected country in the world because we are brave and fighting on the frontlines of the war against the virus. And what about the people of India who are more than 60% poor and illiterate who will be dying from the virus, not knowing what they are suffering from, with no medicines and no one to take care of them in terms of professional help since they fear going to the hospitals because of the social stigma associated with the virus and worried about the high cost of treatment. Do these people deserve to die? Is this the leadership that we sent to government to look after us. This smacks of complete irresponsibility. Vacuity at its worst.
And what has the government been doing, once having found that they have failed to stem the rot in terms of the rampaging virus, it has turned on its media apparatus to show that it has been 'doing its best' and touting figures which convey no meaning to the suffering people who have tested +ve or are sick with the virus. They are saying that the recovery rate which at one point of time they said above 72% recovery means we are winning the war against the virus, while today it is at 77% if we are able to believe the government figures. But the virus has shown that it is winning. As for the lowest death rate, what solace does it give to the person dying from the virus? The government also tried to justify the rapidly climbing infection rate with the claim that testing had been increased which threw up more infected, that the recent festivals led to more mingling of people and the third cause being, the opening up of the economy. At the same time the common people are giving up the belief in the tests since half the time they are wrong. The government further got the Indian Medical Council to put out the results of the Sero Survey done in April 2020 which put out figures that by May 2020 already 6 million Indians had the virus in them. This is complete humbug since the figures match the current infected numbers and seem to be put just to whitewash the government image to justify that the virus was already there and nothing much could have been done to reduce the number of infections. The new story that is being put out is that the containment of the virus is not possible and that we should focus on limiting the number of deaths and try saving lives. There could also be a disturbing reason for pandering to the pandemic by our politicians since in India they want the people to be dependent on them and keep coming to them given the education level which is why the pandemic has been allowed to spread. But this is a dangerous game since the consequence is death, the number of which cannot be estimated in advance. The continuing pandemic benefits everyone who are bent upon making money from it at the cost of suffering people like the private health care system who have been fleecing patients, consultants who keep popping up giving you advice on how to deal with the virus etc. etc.
Thus one would suggest that the government put its head down and apply it to the task at hand which is to control the virus and get rid of it like China has done. Half measures like those that India has followed were also used across Europe where the compulsions of opening up were given priority and in almost every country starting from the UK, France etc. we are seeing a resurgence of cases. Thus it is best that we adopt a dual pronged strategy of providing enhanced protection at the individual level as enumerated earlier and the other strategies employed now so that new cases are minimised and a manageable case load is thrust upon our overstretched health infrastructure of both personnel and facilities. Otherwise by Jan 2021 we will be seeing people dying like flies on the Indian streets akin to the scenes of the bubonic plague that spread through Europe in the Middle Ages. This government has to also own responsibility for complete mismanagement of the COVID19 pandemic and to allow it to grow to monstrous proportions. We have seen during the initial days of Demonetisation people would be thronging banks to exchange the old notes and/or withdraw cash and now in the COVID19 pandemic time we will be having people thronging hospitals in same numbers to seek treatment from the virus. And the most disappointing part is that when we have crisises plaguing the country we never see the PM on the frontlines of the action and he is strangely silent and there is not a single word from him on the way forward for dealing with the pandemic. This clearly is the nadir of leadership that we have to put up with.
India's Economy Adrift During The Pandemic : 14 Sept 2020
The management of the COVID 19 pandemic by our government has been bad but the management of the economy facing the consequences of the pandemic has been worse. Every single economist in the country knows that after the Ganesha festival in Aug - Sept the economy sees an upswing in demand as the festivals ring in one after another across the country with the Durga Puja, Diwali and then Christmas and New Year coming in. Festivals means people mingle believing that their faith in God overcomes all obstructions, difficulties and that they get an immunity shield against disease. With people mingling the pandemic will gain momentum and spread which is what is happening precisely now. Other than that it was predicted that the pandemic would peak around the world in the Aug - Dec time span and right at the beginning of this surge we have Unlock - 4 of India ignoring the danger of the spread of the virus but pompously touting that the Indian economy and society cannot remain shut any longer. But what did our government do about the economy in the face of the pandemic and to lessen its impact on the people. There were no tangible benefits which were offered to the people that would help them tide over the crisis and stand on their own feet. Just giving free rations of food grains and trickles of money once in a while into the Jan Dhan accounts is just not enough. Sustained support was required when people are faced with situations like the current pandemic which reassures the people that the government is behind them with help and support so that they can build their lives all over again and stand on their own feet. The pandemic has affected all strata of society and just catering to the BPL and near BPL segment of society and those with Jan Dhan accounts is not enough. There has been a major loss of jobs in all sectors of industry and those providing services. This category of people also require support but the government has not even looked at them. As for industry much was made out about what the government is doing for the MSME sector but the initiatives turned out to be a raw deal. The common refrain of the government is to make everyone atmanirbhar, they want everyone to take a loan and then the government will give you an interest subsidy. This is absolutely insane logic where by analogy if a hungry person comes to you for food, you tell him I will give you a loan but I will charge you a lower interest. With this kind of thinking, it is no wonder that our banks and financial institutions are reeling under NPA's. It is not only that but the government in its wisdom accepted that the pandemic has affected industry and so said that it is declaring a moratorium for 6 months at the outset on loan instalment payments. With the moratorium period getting almost over, the industry are finding that the financial institutions are charging interest on the loans during the moratorium period. Is there any meaning to such kind of initiatives which negate the very purpose why the initiative was given in the first place. The matter has gone to the Supreme Court now which was unnecessary if the government had thought out a well constructed plan to help industry. Our Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman is completely out of her depth to serve in that position and needs to thank the pandemic for continuing on the job because the planned Cabinet reshuffles have been shelved for the time being. Thus during the pandemic the country's economy continues to aimlessly drift like a ship which has lost its engines on the high seas in the midst of a storm.
Subject: COVID19 Pandemic In India Far From Over, So Make Enhanced Individual Protection Mandatory: 8 September 2020
The management of the COVID-19 pandemic in India is getting curiouser and curiouser. The governments of the day seem to be no longer interested in the containment of the virus. They are more bothered about putting out figures about the improving recovery rate and that the death rate is one of the lowest in the world. This is nothing but a public relations exercise to convey comfort to the public. All this while the number of infected cases per day has been galloping past 65,000, then 70,000 and now touching 90,000, which are all the highest in the world currently. With this we have crossed Brazil and have become the 2nd highest country in the world after the US in the number of cases for the COVID-19 virus. An infamous distinction indeed! Even here the government agencies are talking of an exposure rate per million to the virus being one of the lowest in the world which is no balm to those suffering from the virus. The John Hopkins Institute has been putting the US figures of exposure to some 5 million while actually it has been admitting that the cases, maybe, are closer to 10 million. Thus one needs to understand that the India case load may be much more than 3.5 million since many as we are hearing from the papers are not coming to the hospitals in time and because of that also dying. We may not be able to achieve the dubious distinction of being the highest affected country in the world for the COVID-19 virus since the US is too far ahead in terms of the unofficial case load of 10 million but the way things are going in terms of governmental indifference to containment we may easily cross the official US case load figure of 5 million in a few weeks. This is shameful indeed when we have probably the largest pool of medical manpower in the world.
The government fails to understand that the figures for those infected will always be naturally underestimated. While the figures of the recovery rate and that of the death rate can always be managed. It is also in the interest of the government to project that more people are recovering and less people are dying. As it is this government has a serious credibility issue in any figures it puts out starting from the GDP onwards and therefore any figures about the virus that are released tend to be suspect. The government has been trying to wish away the higher daily case load by claiming testing has been increased, the recent festivals where people were e posed more and the progressive opening up of the economy. These are but plausible excuses since there is a structural fault in the government's decision. The fault is that it is opening up of the economy and easing restrictions on people when the virus is peaking. It was known that the virus would peak in India anywhere between late August and mid-October and the government without taking cognisance of that has opened out the economy. And therefore now it is reaping the harvest of that injuduciousness with a higher case load. This is not the first time that the government has shown that their judgment is faulty since even earlier when the migrants were clamouring to return home from the cities, the government blocked them by not running the trains. This led to the creation of a minor humanitarian disaster with the migrants resorting to any mode of transport to reach home with some even walking. But in essence what happened was that the migrants continued stay in the cities increased the number of infections among them and when the trains started, these infected people distributed the infections across the country mostly into the rural areas in larger numbers. If the government had shown some emotional intelligence and recognised the need of the migrants to be near their family when faced with unknown danger in the form of the virus and allowed them to move earlier then the transfer of infections would have been much lower thus making maybe the load on the health system more manageable. Thus these are some aspects that should have been done by the government but then this happens only when the senior leadership and the bureaucracy are on top of the problem. Here the approach is of confusion and time-lag in decision making which has compounded the problem. Another thing that should never have been done was to delegate to the States the lockdown schedules since these would be driven by political considerations. A centralised expert body of doctors and public health experts should have led India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic which would depute teams to respective States, if required, to assess local conditions and then decide upon containment procedures.
Actually we started off well in March 2020 in the battle against the virus. Being unaware of the nature of the virus, we adopted the 'follow the leader' doctrine and treaded in the footsteps of China and the Western countries. Lockdowns were set up to break the chain of the spread of the virus. Well into the 2nd month after 24 March 2020, we should have realised that lockdowns do not work in India, since we lack discipline and the sense of community responsibility. So lockdowns at most will be porous which which will not help in stopping the chain of infection. We should have switched to increased personal protection at the individual level since that is where the infection starts. Other than that in the migrants situation as we covered earlier were cooked in the virus and then sent across India to aid the spread of the virus. What we saved in number of cases by setting up lockdowns, we squandered by mishandling the migrants situation. Not only that the Centre started delegating the containment strategies believing that local decisions to the States would be more effective. As said earlier the level of technical expertise was thus devalued and political considerations crept in. The virus was making merry all the while in winning the war while we are happy in winning minor battles here and there. That is the reason why we are topping 90,000 new cases per day currently and the virus has become rampant.
And what have our leaders been doing. Modi after exhorting the virtues of the lockdown in his March 2020 address to the nation has progressively minimised his attention to the management of the virus. After participating in making the mask a fashion statement as seen in his many public appearances over the last 5-6 months, he is content now with feeding the peacocks, promoting the native breeds of dogs and wanting to make India the toy capital of the world! All well-intentioned and designed to maximise his public relations image in these photo-opportunities but also akin to the incident of the Roman Emperor Nero playing his fiddle while Rome was burning. Or one can say that Modi is very much removed from reality like Marie Antoinette was when she said - If they cannot get bread, why don't they eat cake. Following in Modi's footsteps are the lesser leaders in the BJP and ministers in the government who have either contracted the virus or have publicly declared going into self-quarantine to show that they are in the frontlines of the battle against the virus. The badge of virus contractors or survivors is worn by almost every Chief Minister, more so those from the BJP party, with Goa CM Pramode Sawant joining their ranks lately. Thus leaders in government and politicians seem to be white-washing their image as warriors against the virus, by either catching the virus and then recovering and sometimes succumbing. Little do these leaders realise that the fact that they have contracted the virus exhibits their stupidity since if they are not able to protect themselves then how can they protect the lay citizens. This argument also applies to senior bureaucrats and experienced senior doctors, among the latter group where some have also died from the virus. Such instances set a bad example in the public minds and results in a lack of confidence in the public administration and the health system.
As said earlier the virus is apparently not as dangerous as expected in the initial days except that it does not have a vaccine to cure people that has led to a general apathy about the preventive measures and a situation of taking it for granted among the political leadership. People have also been getting tired of the restrictions and are restive to return back to their normal routines. Not only that testing has turned to be unreliable. Therefore people are afraid to go in for testing since visiting centres with other likely infected people around is a risk of themselves catching the infection. Added to that is the stigma generally associated with COVID +ve people, which is more in the rural areas, who are avoided by society with added complications of sealing of premises, containment procedures etc. Therefore people prefer to suffer silently going to hospitals as a last resort and more often than not dying. The government and the leadership has not addressed this problem through its mass education and public relations programs.
Even at the present moment where the number of new infected likely to touch the 1 Lakh figure per day with the peakingf the virus, the government remains confused. It continues to insist on the testing and containment approach while medical and public health experts are advocating that containment will not work anymore and it is best that we focus on saving deaths. Thus the government is caught at sixes and sevens on what to do further. At the same time the WHO Secretary General has lately said that the COVID19 pandemic will be peaking around the world by Dec 2020 since the flu season picks up during the winter which is upcoming. Again the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation (IHME) in the University of Washington's School of Medicine has recently in a study positioned that in the next 4 months deaths from the virus will quadruple to close to 2 million if people take personal protection like wearing face masks etc. and to 4 million if people do not take protection. Putting the WHO & IHME projections together we are likely to see the peaking of the virus around the world by Dec 2020. Added to that if we take the rising incidence of the virus in Europe and random cases being seen in Japan, New Zealand and other countries and the fact that second infections of the virus are likely, India which may be peaking earlier cannot be complacent about the virus. Thus where compulsions of opening up of the economy exist we need at the same time to escalate individual protection and make it mandatory to wear masks/face shields, gloves, cover oneself up with a scaled down PPE or wear a burqua type of shroud and overshoes (optional). This method will reduce the number of new infections to more manageable levels. The authorities and police should also enforce this strictly for anyone coming out in public. In fact this scaled up protection at the individual level should have been done much earlier, from May 2020 when we found out that masks and lockdowns were unable to contain the virus, then we would have been going about our daily lives at home and at work as normal pre-March 2020 and the economy would have also recovered much earlier. But with timid and unsure political leadership we have landed ourselves into a mess now and even then we have to see how we can come out of it quickly. The COVID19 has come out of the entrails of the planet through the animal kingdom to which our leaders advice was hide at home, do nothing. The next time there is an attack from maybe outer space then probably the leaders would tell us get under the beds at home and remain out of sight to protect yourself. That is the quality of leadership we have today in the country.
Leave The Pandemic Management To Doctors & Public Health Experts :
26 August 2020
One has been writing ad nauseum that priority should be given for individual protection against the Coronavirus and it should be the first line of defence to curb the galloping spread. India over the last week had new cases averaging 60-70,000 per day and with that has crossed the 3 million mark with the last million coming in just 16 days. These numbers do not seem to have drilled any sense into our administrators who continue to Unlock the economy. A couple of days ago shooting of TV serials and films was approved to commence. While shooting indoors is OK, outdoor shooting should not be allowed since you have members of the public throng these shoots with the crowd varying in number depending on how big the stars are. Social distancing goes for a toss in these instances. Even with indoor shoots we have reports coming in of 7 persons testing positive for the Coronavirus on the sets of a popular Hindi TV serial. In the Unlock 4 guidelines the Metro is proposed to be opened which is another no-no since large numbers of the public in confined spaces is the ideal ground for the virus to multiply. The government has also given guidelines that inter-State movement of goods and people should not be hindered or curbed. Actually there is no problem of opening up of all these but at the same time balance it by increasing the protective measures of the individual. Since it is obvious that the economy cannot be allowed to slide into a depression progressively but at the same time we need to make it mandatory for the public to wear masks/face shields, gloves, stripped down PPE's or burqa style shrouds which cover you from head to toe and overshoes (optional).With such levels of protection even schools and colleges can be re-opened and all activities can return to normal. Look at the differences in approaches relating to schools and colleges in the UK and India. Boris Johnson while heeding a team of experts said for the all round development of children schools need be re-opened quickly since the risk of the virus is much less than the risk of not going to school. While here we want to keep schools closed which will hamper the school-going habit, stunt their learning ability, etc. Over time you will see more school drop-outs and students from slums and villages who were earlier attending school will stop coming. But with increased protection to the child schools can function normally.This does not mean we slacken on any of the other measures like testing, containment etc. They can continue to remain in place but what the higher level of individual protection will do is bring down the rate of new infections to more manageable levels and not be runaway as it is now. At the same time the collateral damage in terms of deaths from the virus will dramatically reduce. Thus restore the priority to saving people's lives.But adopting blow hot - blow cold measures to open the economy will only end up giving the gaps from which the virus will creep in and extend its footprint. This has been happening in Europe and East Asia from which we need to learn lessons since the geographical spread of our country is similar to these regions particularly Europe and the populations are also similarly diverse in habits. Thus if we Unlock without counter-balances we will continue to remain in the throes of the virus for eternity.All this is happening because our politicians and officials lack the understanding and do not have the imagination on methods to tackle the impact from an unknown virus. With politicians what we are seeing is a complete lack of leadership and who consider photo-ops of feeding peacocks more important than getting to grips with measures to tackle the pandemic. They also are taking the virus for granted since it has shown that it is not very lethal and many of their ilk have caught the virus and have recovered. Thus dealing with the virus has gone off the radar of the politicians. They are also milking the suffering from the virus by expressing sympathy and trying to convince people how much they are doing to take care of the public. These are good vote gathering tactics. These approaches of ignoring the virus is what Trump and Bolsonaro of Brazil followed, which we are subscribing to now and the end result that will emerge is that we will top the list of cases in the world of being infected by the virus. With the leaders behaving like this, it is not surprising that officials in government are taking their cue from them and issuing irresponsible circulars. True to their calling the officials who customarily specialise in unidirectional thinking are doing what they do best and that is when told to do lockdown, they will do lockdown rigorously and when Unlock is said, they will unlock with gusto. There is no lateral thinking. There is no consideration of correlating issues, implications and impact assessment of their decisions. These are dangerous trends since then there is a likelihood that the pandemic may get completely out of hand.The leadership in the country need to take cognisance of this on a most urgent basis since otherwise we will have every other person in the country test COVID +ve. In that case the politicians will claim that the country has achieved herd immunity from COVID19 and the whole country is safe now with no effort on their part. One thinks that measures to tackle the pandemic should be driven by technical people like doctors and public health experts working out of an apex body at the Centre and then coordinating with the State level protective bodies of similar experts since it is no longer safe to leave these decisions to a bunch of bumbling politicians and officials.
Don't Give Up The Fight Against COVID19, But Mandate Enhanced Personal Protection: 20 August 2020
The whole world seems to have gone bonkers over the COVID19 virus. Ever since the virus surfaced in the first few months of 2019, the one word that can summarise the response to the virus outbreak is 'over-reaction'. This was natural since it was simultaneously found that the virus does not respond to available vaccines or medicines and is in that sense immune and its reaction with those infected uncurable. Therefore as a method to deal with the spreading virus decided to go on a 'lockdown' to 'break the cycle' meaning the transmission of the virus from one person to another. Considering that 14 days was the infection cycle for the COVID19 the lockdowns were set to 14 days or more. There was no choice about doing this since in the initial days of the virus outbreak since nothing was known about it except that it was immune to most known vaccines. Thus progressively the whole world saw a shutdown where people were asked to stay at home and wear masks when they come out in public. The only 2 countries that were an exception to this practice of wearing masks were Brazil and the US. Both tried to underestimate the impact of the virus with their heads of State, Trump and Bolsonaro famously refusing to wear masks. Bolsonaro later tested +ve for the virus along with his wife and Trump is reported to have taken a course of HCQ as a preventive measure with many of his close aides testing +ve for the virus. Both countries lead the tally in the number of people infected by the COVID19 virus with the US topping the charts, so to speak, with 5 million cases, though the Johns Hopkins Institute that is keeping the official tally says that the cases have topped 10 Million. Brazil is hobbling around in the 2nd place with a tally of anywhere between 2-3 million cases. India is a close 3rd with possibilities of the 2.5 million cases as existing rising rapidly and taking over the 2nd place shortly. Other countries treaded a safer approach of 'break the chain' of infection by 'containment' methods like 'lockdown' and 'social distancing' and after an initial spurt of infection are now placed comfortably with many taking those hesitant steps to normal life. However, even after that we are seeing sporadically that the infection is surfacing like notably New Zealand declared itself COVID19 virus free for more than 100 days but then it has seen cases emerge again in Auckland. Thus as the virus moves across to South America and Africa, the situation of the virus spread will get out of hand as we have seen in India where the lockdowns are porous, containment is like a sieve and social distancing is thrown to the winds. We have to therefore learn to live with the virus for at least the next year or more even with vaccines becoming available since that is the time the vaccines will also need to be available around the world and become affordable. We have already lost one year and its impact on the world economy is there for everyone to see. Also remember it is the poorer countries that will be hit more in terms of human cost by shutting down of their economies fearing the virus. The richer countries have a larger cushion to withstand economic distress. So can we afford another year of shutting down of the world economy?
As mentioned earlier the only approach to fight the virus was to 'break the chain' and ask the general public to wear minimal individual protection like a mask. With the spiralling rates of infection around the world obviously these measures have not worked. This may be for whatever reasons which could be country or region specific as detailed earlier. Thus it is important that we recognise that the earlier measures to combat the virus have not worked as much as they should have. Therefore we need to supplement the protection of the people. The focus of protection has always been the 'place' rather than the individual or the people. If we ask the common public to wear face shields, a burqah or a shroud covering themselves from head to toe like a PPE, gloves and overshoes (optional) then they are protected from the virus and for those who have been infected but have to yet get themselves tested, it will remain within their burqah or shroud. Thus others of the public will not contract the infection. This method is bound to reduce the rate of new infections reducing the load on the health infrastructure. We can try this method and examine if it reduces the levels of infection compared to the existing methods which obviously seem suspect.
If we switch the emphasis to individual protection against the virus and people wearing face shields, a burqah or a shroud covering themselves from head to toe like a PPE, gloves and overshoes (optional) then everything can return to normal. The economy, the educational institutions, the transport networks like the underground Metro and the suburban trains. We will then within a short period of time not having to lament that everything is stopped, everything is a crisis. With prolonged lockdowns the poor are the ones who will be hit more. All sectors of the economy and society will not seek financial support from the government by putting out their hands for assistance as we are seeing now. Even people like Parekh of HDFC and Kotak of Kotak Mahindra are seeking assistance packages even though their banks are the biggest among the private sector. The already cash-strapped governments are finding it difficult to meet these increasing demands.
We also need to look at the COVID19 crisis from another angle. We consider human beings the most intelligent beings on this planet. And we are running scared of the virus that is microscopic without really making any serious attempts to go out and combat it. Instead of that we are asking people to go into avoidance mode and stay at home. We are with full knowledge asking people to become lazy. We are getting to almost 6 months of this forced confinement of people at home with practically no gainful activity. Imagine the impact on productivity when these people return for work, whenever that may be, since they will take definitely close to 3 months to get back to normal work patterns after shrugging off the accumulated lethargy. Apart from that this forced confinement has an effect on the minds of the people, more on the youth. These young people studying in colleges and with ambitious careers on their minds suddenly find themselves looking at a dark tunnel ahead. No amount of telling them that the things will come back to normal in a short while will help them since one can lose 3-4 months on a career path but not about a year that could be extended most likely to 2 years. We are already seeing hi-profile suicides in the entertainment sector mostly in the middle level where these people are finding the earnings flow not matching their aspirational lifestyles. In the humdrum life of common people we are seeing increasing instances of domestic violence. All this is the psychological impact of the virus and the resultant inactivity that has been forced upon them. Time to open out and return to normal lives with caution since it is better to die fighting than to die passively.
Once the virus emerged there was a scare since no vaccine was available to cure it. The governments and authorities tended then to become over-cautious and jealously imposed the lockdowns and were strict on the preventive measures. But as the days have passed and it has been found that the common flu or even tuberculosis is more dangerous than the COVID19 in terms of fatalities governments have become lax. Politicians in countries like India are taking the virus for granted and as a way of life now. They are only paying lip service to the protection of the people and on measures to combat the virus. This despite the country topping the world COVID19 charts in the number of infections and number of deaths in the last few days. If this has not rung home a message, we have had a number of deaths across the country of famous and accomplished doctors, granted that the majority of these are more than 60 years old. One would expect that these doctors would be aware of the practices to take protection from the virus while treating patients but despite that they have fallen prey to the virus. Considering that the deaths have happened across the country would mean that it may not have been because of individual carelessness or negligence. Not only that we have had the Central Minister responsible for Ayurveda, the system of medicine that uses herbs and plants, infected with the virus. He had been claiming that Ayurveda can cure COVID19 and also touting Ayurveda formulations to boost immunity. Surely he would have known about protection measures against the virus and the impact of his catching the virus on the claim of Ayurveda as protection or a cure for it, becoming suspect. These points are being made to emphasise the fact that those knowledgeable on how to deal with the virus and in positions of authority have fallen prey to the virus which re-affirms the argument that the current protection measures are not enough.
People are making money from the virus, left, right and center. Everybody who is anybody touts himself as an expert and spouts advice on immunity formulations, protection methods, de-mystification of symptoms, when to seek hospitalisation, etc. etc. There are no messages thankfully on how to die from the virus. But they continue giving advice on post-hospitalisation care at home, possible symptoms during recovery, likely illnesses post-recovery etc.etc. The media is lapping all this up but on the common public it is like trauma since the COVID19 dominates anything that you lay your eyes upon. This barrage weighs on the mind of individuals and creates a fear situation. Where we should be conveying the need to stand up and fight, we are asking our people to become cowering victims of this unknown scourge. We can only fight if we are protected well and that is where the enhanced individual protection comes in.
As for corruption arising from the COVID19, it is rampant right from the policeman who will catch you for lockdown violations and charge you a fee to let you off. From testing for the virus where the labs will ask for their pound flesh notwithstanding the fact that the tests are not very reliable. Then the quarantine black mail whether institutional or paid where touts play a role in blackmarketing the rates charged. Then doctors who charged the poor migrants a premium for health certificates before they could move back to home States. Then private hospitals who rack up their rates for treatment for COVID19 patients. The list is endless and long. If we are able to stem the increase of new infection, then this chain of needless suffering could be lessened if not stopped. And the way to contain new infection is to protect the individual better.
The COVID19 virus is not going to go away in a hurry. The virus has returned in NZ, South Korea, Japan and even China. And in localities, areas, regions, towns and cities in other parts of the world which had declared themselves virus free it has come back and with a vengeance. We therefore have to recognise that we are in for the long haul in the battle against the virus. This first wave of infection is going to at least last for another 1 year. As said earlier, considering that the virus is not so dangerous in terms of fatalities and with its unabated and escalating march, the politicians and authorities are taking it for granted. They are looking at it as a way of life. This is a dangerous approach since more and more people will get infected and also die. Therefore rather than turn a blind eye to the increasing infection, we should make enhanced individual protection mandatory like wearing face shields, a burqah or a shroud covering themselves from head to toe like a PPE, gloves and overshoes (optional) compulsory.
The COVID19 Statistics Are Like A Game Show: 9 August 2020
The COVID19 statistics are now being treated as a cricket ODI (One Day International) score. This is at least true for Goa where he have been having 348, 191, 333 and 259 new cases in the last few days. What is the latest infected cases number? What is the number of deaths today? These are the questions that dominates conversations when we speak to each other lately. In the last few days, India had both the highest deaths and the highest number of infected in the world in a single day. However, the government in its wisdom is touting the recovery and death rates trying to hide the stark reality of the fast growing pandemic. India crossed 2 Million cases on 7 Aug 20, and it took just 20 days time to reach this mark from 1 million, which was again the fastest in the world compared to Brazil and the US. These two countries are ahead of us in the number of infected cases but it will not be long before we overtake Brazil and then the US. On the same day, 7 Aug 20, there were more than 62,000 new infected cases across the country, again the highest in the world. And the main-line national newspapers do not carry this statistical information on the front page except for just one paper from eastern India. Whether the pushing out of the COVID19 pandemic to the back pages by the media is a deliberate tactic to remove it from the public eye or play into the hands of the government which obviously would not want to publicise their mismanagement of the pandemic, to earn some brownie points, one is not sure. Not only that we have our Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan say recently that the COVID19 pandemic is under control and is on the wane in India. And this man is a candidate to head WHO and if it happens, the fate of the world will become truly unsafe with the lurking threat again coming out of China of a tic virus and the bubonic plague. The Prime Minister is least bothered at the present moment about the virus outbreak and like a Godsend is using the China incursion in Ladakh and the bhoomi Pujas in Ayodhya to divert attention from the pandemic. Like said earlier the government seems to be taking the tacit position of looking the other way while more and more people fall sick, hospitals turn away people who are sick, overcharge them, the COVID19 dead do not get their funeral rites done and the families have to throw the bodies into rivers, people get ostracised if they fall prey to the infection and when they return after treatment. And nobody seems to be bothered. COVID19 seems to have been assimilated into the Indian way of life and been made a part of the family. This reckless and irresponsible approach of the government needs to be corrected and it is time it took stock of the situation in a scientific manner to limit new infections as much as possible. The only way to do this is to provide enhanced personal protection to the individual with masks, adapted and scaled down PPE's, face shields or visors, gloves and overshoes (optional). At the least this will keep the individual safe from the virus outside and also keep in the virus for those who are asymptomatic or infected until they seek medical help. This one has been writing ad nauseum but it seems it is not penetrating the thick skills of our administrators and politicians who are continuing with the superficial measures of randomised lockdowns that have no meaning, containment zones which are leaky as a sieve and testing procedures that are debatable in terms of timeliness of test results and the validity of results themselves. These people continue to do this since it feeds into their pockets in the form of corruption and provides opportunities for everyone to milk the pandemic to serve their personal interests mostly to make money. Thus there is an agenda to let the pandemic proliferate at the cost of people's lives. This needs to be changed and on an immediate and urgent basis.Make Wearing Gloves & Mask Mandatory At The Minimum: 4 August 2020
The COVID19 virus continues its rampaging, escalating course across the swathe of India. However, the authorities and government are not even attempting to stall its advance. Everyday we see the infections increasing to record levels as the media is wont to quote. Now that the States have been allowed to adopt their SOP's we have a distorted approach to combating the virus. Places like Goa which until about 2 months back did not have a single case is reporting today more than 300 cases a day. Bengal is randomising lockdowns twice a week with very short notice to the people. Thus in all this with disparate practices the common man on the street is left to his own devices to find protection. Without claiming to be a virologist or a public health expert and relying on plain and simple logic associated with a little common sense, one can say that with the first emphasis on the avenues to catch the virus being from your hands which come into contact with external surfaces, the suggestion was that one should wash your hands with soap and water to get rid of the deposited virus. Additionally it was advised that one should not touch your face when you were out and also to wear masks. As time has progressed since the first lockdown on 24 March 2020, there is at least a 90% compliance on the the wearing of masks across the country and maybe a little less in the washing of hands upon return. The problem with washing of hands is that people should have firstly water and also to spare if every member of the family has to wash his/her hands when they go out and come back. However, we see that even after these practices are somewhat in place the infection is not only spreading but rising randomly in numbers across the country with a spike here and there. So if after 4 months we have not been able to contain the virus then there is something wrong in our practices. Now if hands and touching things is the first interface, then should we not have been wearing gloves from the beginning when coming out in public in addition to the mask. Even now it is not too late that we make a course correction and ask people to wear both the mask and gloves when they come out. Though one personally prefers that each person should be mandated not only to wear the mask preferably a visor or a face shield, gloves, stripped down and adapted PPE's, in fact a burqa is ideal, and overshoes (optional). This will give hair (as adapted from head) to toe protection. This should be the only way forward to contain the virus and simultaneously resume normalcy in our way of life and work as also in our economy. If we do not do this then there will be sporadic spikes of infection here and there across the country needing us to react to these outbreaks without any assurance that these will come to an end. At the same time inter-State movement of people as also those returning from abroad or foreign visitors should go through strict testing and quarantine regimen since if even there is one person with the infection coming in, that person has the chance to become the super-spreader leading to the chain of infection starting all over again. One hopes that sense will prevail with the authorities and government and they will implement these suggestions.The COVID19 Pandemic Is Rocking On Its Own : 28 July 2020
Every category of people are milking the COVID19 pandemic as much as they can before some of the vaccines in the pipeline become available. This includes politicians, the health care sector, scientists, NGO's, media, consultants, opinion leaders etc. etc. None of these people want the COVID19 virus to disappear or a cure to be found since their new found bread and butter or maybe one should say dal/roti or better still paneer and chicken, will just vanish. Politicians in the early months who were trying to combat the virus, strengthen health care facilities etc. have by the beginning of the fifth month become helpless and given up. They are desperately trying to shore up their public image by claiming to help the affected persons, invoking meaningless statistics to confuse the public, but in reality they really do not know what to do. Quoting a lower death rate compared to the rest of the world does not help those who are dead and their families. Neither does quoting a higher recovery rate help the Corona warriors on the front line if new infections are higher than the recovery rate, since the hospitals are overwhelmed and patients have to run from pillar to post to get a hospital bed to ensure proper treatment. Our politicians at the first sign of a drop in the number of new infections are claiming that 'herd immunity' has set in without understanding firstly, the meaning of the term, secondly, that the drop could be a flash in the pan and thirdly, that the virus has reared up its head again after the first wave in places like Wuhan, Tokyo and South Korea. Then in Karnataka, we have corruption allegations to the level of Rs. 2000 crores in procurement of items for the fight against the virus and the Andhra CM has just now said that he will spend Rs. 1000 crores to build hospitals for COVID19 patients. How much of that will go into the pockets of someone or the party, is anyone’s guess? At the same time horror stories abound across India of pregnant COVID +ve women driven away from hospitals and some giving birth on the roads, dead bodies being dumped with JCB's, exorbitant charges being recovered from patients for treatment and quarantine, some 5000 COVID patients gone missing in Karnataka etc. etc. While all this is happening the number of those infected with the virus are rising and will shortly hit the 1.5 Million mark. With random spikes of infection across the country what we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg and it will not be long before every other person in the country will get infected by the virus. This will be primarily because every government in the country including the Centre is consciously turning a blind eye to the pandemic and thus refusing to try and manage it. The 'chalta hai, chalne do' attitude is kicking in that the virus is not very dangerous and taking the fatalistic attitude that from the infected people, some will recover and some will die. As long as we can hide and/or manage the infected and death figures and emphasise on the recovery rates, the politicians feel that they can get away with it. This way one day or the other herd immunity will definitely kick in and then they, the politicians that is, will have had the problem solved of the virus and no worries anymore. However, the human cost of this approach in terms of deaths from the virus will be massive. The media is also helping to de-emphasise on the pandemic and trying to concentrate on the 'feel good' stories coming out of the pandemic. While what they should be doing is to bring out the gaps and lacunae in the government strategies to fight the virus. The PM on his part instead of driving home the continued menace of the infection is launching into pithy statements like 'we need to be careful while going out etc.etc.' With this we have proved that we are utterly incompetent to deal with a raging pandemic in a sustained and committed manner to protect the citizens of this country.
Do Not Pander To The Pandemic, Take Corrective Action Now: 20 July 2020
With the number of cases crossing the million mark so quickly there is a need to take more urgent and different action than the random lockdowns and ad-hoc containment zones being instituted around the country. One cannot understand what this government is doing. Why are they not asking themselves simple questions like? Who’s getting infected? Why are they getting infected? What needs to be done to protect the people from the infection? The answers to these questions are. People are getting infected. Because they are not protected enough. Increase their protection because the mask is just not enough. Instead of that what we are doing is going in the opposite direction. If a COVID positive is detected then we seal the building where the person stays or the office where he works and/or sanitise the premises. And if there are more cases then we declare a containment zone for the locality. Look at the stupidity of this entire exercise. Instead of the individual being the focus, the larger attention is on the place. While if the individual is better protected then not only do you protect the person but also prevent the infection from spreading. This thus reduces further new infection. This method does not mean that you stop doing the place protection like sealing the premises etc. etc. but over time you will see that there will be less and less need for that with the new infections reducing. The present exercise of containment is a a huge inconvenience to the people and a massive loss in productivity for society. And we have been continuing with this for almost the last 4 months now. We have tried for so long with the present method and it is clear that it is not working. Therefore it is time to change. Thus we need to provide increased protection for the individual and move forward in dealing with the pandemic with the objective to defeat it and not pamper it as we are doing now. Why are our leaders not taking these steps but continuing with the lockdown etc.? The simple answer is that they do not want to take any risk and prefer to seek the comfort of precedence, having done lockdown before, and that is the easiest thing to do. For Unlock you have to deal with many more issues than lockdown since in the latter you ask people to remain within their homes and penalise them if they come out. What kind of leadership is this? One without imagination and guts. What kind of a message are you sending to the people? That the leadership is clueless. This leads to uncertainty, lack of confidence and diminishes the morale of people. Instead of encouraging the people to come out and fight, they are being asked to hide like rats. There could be an underlying agenda in this and that is, it is good politics to pander to the pandemic since it gives avenues for making money and our political leaders can project that they are helping the people. Therefore on an immediate basis make wearing face shields, adapted and/or stripped down PPE's, gloves and overshoes (optional) mandatory when people have to come out in public. Once this is done you will find everything will become more normal and the economy will start returning to its regular way of functioning. With vaccines on the way starting end of 2020, as is reported currently with positive results emerging from trials, we should by mid-2021 return to the normal of life as it was before end-2019.Modi Has To Squarely Face Facts & Give Nod For increased Personal Protection Against The Virus: 19 July 2020Narendra Modi's leadership style leaves a lot to be desired. For a man who can speak well, the random silences when issues are on the boil in the country talks of a personality fault. Whenever any issue has come up and the expectation is created that the PM may make a statement, Modi belies it and nothing comes out of his mouth except maybe a limp comment and that too belatedly. At least for the COVID pandemic he did take the lead in March 2020 while announcing the countrywide lockdown and was then tracking each extension with nationwide broadcasts as long as the Centre was holding the reins for controlling the pandemic but then strangely over the last 10 days when things are going from bad to worse, he remains tongue tied. Leadership is to be shown when chips are down and that is what Modi lacks. He has been seeing that the spread of the infection is continuing unabated and obviously the present protection measures for individuals is sadly not enough. This is the time he has to call the shots and initiate change in the level of protection being recommended for the people. Given his style the people in his Cabinet and/or government will not take the initiative and wait for him to give the nod. If he delays any further to give the assent for increased protection at the individual level against the virus, we will have crossed the 1.5 million infections goal comfortably. Time therefore to enhance individual protection so that new infections are brought down.For God's Sake, Increase Individual Protection To Fight COVID : 16 July 2020The papers are full of the increasing cases of the corona virus across India with the adding of 1 lakh cases in just 3 days. This scenario is alarming with active cases from the infection likely to touch 1 million in the next few days. It is apparent that the top people in government are clueless on the spread of the virus or are deliberately misleading the people. They continue to tout figures of death rate being the lowest inspite of death due to co-morbidities, the recovery rate being the highest in India. All this when compared to the world. The increase in testing and the strategies employed on lockdowns, containment zones etc. etc. This list is long and elaborate but the fact remains that all these measures have not been able to stem the new infections which continue to rise and are random in their spread. It is getting to be 4 months since we had the beginning of the lockdowns but we are in the same position or worse than what we were on the first day. Thus we need to conclude that lockdowns do not work in societal structures like in India. These may be OK for Western societies where dwelling units are relatively segregated and not like in our slums or close housing communities where people are clustered together. Moreover in Western societies people tend to be more disciplined, even Indians who live there, and follow guidelines given by the authorities. While here the guidelines are followed in the exception than by the rule of willingness. Though one must say that the mask rule is being more generally followed. Even then the mask has not proved useful, since its protection is only for namesake and has failed to stop the spread of new infections. The dithering of the government in dealing with the pandemic is letting the people be exposed to greater risk and leaving them direction-less as to how to deal with the virus. The people left to their own assumptions will result in the number of infections to continue to rise. Pandering to the pandemic and massaging it to remain spreading is good politics and provides good opportunities for vested interests to make money in terms of getting the people and government to spend money on protection measures and infrastructure, while people to continue to die from the virus. Whether these measures and infrastructure are necessary or work or not to combat the virus is debatable. Thus there is no need to emphasise that the number of new infections need to be controlled under the present circumstances of the Unlock guidelines which will lead to less pressure on the health administration system. And this can only be done by increasing the protection of individuals. Therefore why the government is not mandating that all citizens when they come out in public should wear face shields, stripped down and adapted PPE's, gloves and also overshoes, the last item being optional, is not understood. The cost of stripped down and adapted PPE's can be all the way down to Rs. 100. They can also be made from weather friendly material and will set off a trend for designing such gear As is happening in mask design. Thus it is not a financial burden for the individual to buy 2/3 sets. Where people can get away by not wearing masks and escape getting caught, it will not be easy for them to do that by not wearing the PPE's and other protective gear since it is more visible. The authorities should be strict in penalising offenders who do not wear the full protective gear with fines. This enhanced protection will definitely reduce the incidence of more infections and be good for the people since it will help in getting back to the normal way of life. With this the government will be relieved from the unnecessary multifarious questions like providing financial assistance to different categories of people, whether to open educational institutions, to hold school/college exams or not, to limit the number of staff in offices etc.etc. Therefore it is time enough we implemented this measure of mandating the wearing of increased personal protection like face shields, stripped down and adapted PPE's, gloves and also overshoes, the last item being optional, urgently, otherwise India will go the way that Brazil & the US has gone in terms of the impact of the virus. One hopes that better sense will prevail within the government or one has to assume that the government is tacitly promoting herd immunity which exposes our lesser privileged communities to infection with more people dying in this category but with no guarantee that the virus will not infect the more privileged class.Make Personal Protection The Dominant Weapon To Fight The COVID19 Pandemic:
8 July 2020
At last count the COVID19 virus accounted for around 700,000 infections in the country with the daily rate crossing 20,000 on 3 consecutive days. This rate of infection has not been contained and new cases are being detected from different areas of the country suggesting that the infection continues to spread. The strategy of 'lockdown' as a containment strategy seems not to be working since in the Indian social context, both as place or area restrictions and in the mind, it will not work. The government without recognising this continues to whip the dead horse of 'lockdown' since as a populist slogan that is the one thing that people probably understand about the pandemic. By doing this the government is actually doing a disservice to the people by pushing them into the maws of COVID19.
This is apparent from some of the statements made by senior functionaries of the present government and the BJP. The Goa CM made an irresponsible statement the other day that Goans seem not to be afraid to die. He was talking in the background of daily cases touching and crossing 100 per day in the last few days and with a total of cases in excess of 1000 for a small place like Goa. Outsiders getting free access to enter the State and not being subjected to any testing but only asked to go into 'voluntary' quarantine have created the present crisis which the government seems to be blissfully ignoring. In contrast the State of Victoria in Australia with a population of 6.5 million people has been sealed off when they got just 127 cases with the the majority of the cases being from Melbourne. This is how people are treated in Australia while in Goa the CM has the temerity to imply that Goan lives are cheap. The reasons Goans will die is because of the lack of testing of incoming people into the State who carry the virus and spread it within Goa. When questioned the State government says that it is difficult to monitor the entry of people into Goa since the trains stop at multiple points and also the testing facilities for incoming people take time and are overloaded. This has resulted in people entering the State without any restriction and spreading the virus and the State government is hiding behind the fig leaf that incoming people are required to go into home quarantine as spelt out in the 9th Jun 2020 circular. This precisely is the reason why the cases within Goa have shot up to excess of 1000 and averaging around 100 per day. The more worrying part is that the virus has reached lately almost every part of Goa including the interiors. Thus as you can see the State government in Goa has thrown up its hands as far as controlling the pandemic is concerned and only going through the motions of trying to combat it. About the people, the situation is close to saying - God Will Help Them. This situation is not limited to Goa but also at the Centre where the PM is advising open the economy but with caution completely ignoring the spurt in cases over the last month or more and looking for publicity opportunities like in releasing the new COVID19 vaccine by Aug 15!
If the spread and incidence of cases related to the COVID19 is going out of hand, one cannot understand why the emphasis has not been shifted to increased personal protection. Obviously the mask is not enough and the government has not thought of asking people to wear face shields or transparent bubbles on their heads, adapted and stripped down PPE's, gloves and overshoes. This not only will reduce the number of new cases coming in and also give the confidence to people to venture out in public and bring about some normality in daily life. Thus the downstream health infrastructure will get some breathing space to re-group and organise themselves better in terms of resources as well as morale. The hesitancy in making these additional items for personal protection mandatory is not understood. It was reported that the COVID19 virus can enter through the eyes for which in place of the mask, the face shield can be used. The transparent bubble on the head in fact gives 360 degree protection and it can be just like the helmet worn by 2-wheeler riders. The same goes for the adapted and stripped down PPE's which will afford protection similar to the regular raincoats or the 2-piece ones that again is worn by 2-wheeler riders during the rainy season. The material of the PPE can be of any type which is weather friendly and it can be styled to the wearer's taste. It will in fact spin off a fashion trend like masks that are designed now to user tastes. There is no point delaying the personal protection since the virus is here to stay for at least another 2 years and we cannot go the stop-start way as we are doing now.We are already No. 3 country impacted by the pandemic but Brazil & the USA are still far, far away which gives us the breathing space to take action and get this pandemic crisis under control as long as we have the will to do it.Change From 'Lockdown' Of The People To 'Locking Out' The Virus : 2 July 2020
We had the Prime Minister come on national TV the other day and asked the people to comply more with the Unlock 1 guidelines otherwise stricter lockdowns will need to be enforced to keep the rampaging COVID19 virus in check. What Narendra Modi does not realise that firstly, these top down instructions do not work as expected and secondly, for some of these to work effectively there needs to be a social eco-system that is conducive. With regard to the lockdown and the social distancing guidelines, the lockdown was at most porous and social distancing will not work in our congested slums and densely populated urban communities. That is why today you will find the distribution of containment zones in these kinds of areas. Again since March 24, 2020 we have practised lockdown but it does not seem to be working otherwise the spread of the virus would not be so rampant. Therefore it is time that instead of keeping people in and the virus out, we need to try a different approach like 'lock out' the virus. Provide people with additional protection and instead of confining them, ask them to move out. This approach will also be coherent with the guidelines of Unlock 1 related to the opening of the economy and returning to normalcy in the way of life as it was before the virus struck. This will also erase the ennui and depression that is encountered by the people during the lockdown by remaining at home and improve their morale. Thus from a helpless and cowering approach to the virus, we will have an 'up and about' fighting approach to the virus.
The additional protection to be provided to people will be adapted PPE's, face shields or transparent bubbles on their heads, gloves and overshoes. This is proposed since over the last 3 months or more the use of the face masks has not proved to be of adequate protection to stop the spread the virus. Therefore we need to do more. By providing people extra protection we are effectively 'locking out' the virus. Just like the masks have evolved into newer designs so also the adapted PPE's will evolve in design once they are made mandatory. Thus wearing designer- masks and adapted PPE's will become a 'fun' event for everyone and through this we will get improved compliance to individual protection. A top down instruction to wear face masks and follow social distancing will be only followed in the breach and then offenders need to be punished. Instead of that if the exercise for wearing extra protection is voluntary then the practice will cover larger sections of the population. To ensure greater compliance those not wearing extra protection can be fined which exercise is easier for police to spot offenders.
As said earlier the virus spread is more in our congested slums and densely populated urban communities which house our workers mostly in the informal sector. These are the people who need to be helped more. Like it or not these people have to move about more for their daily needs and also live in less than hygienic surroundings which is one of the reasons why the incidence of the virus is more in these areas and among such communities. That is why they need extra personal protection. Therefore these adapted extended PPE's should be given to these people first. If possible we should give 2-3 sets per person free and conduct awareness classes through government media or NGO's to get them to wear the PPE's. The PM has announced in the same broadcast as referred above that the poor will be given free rations until Nov 2020. Just giving free food is not enough, what you need is to give them opportunities to go out and get work. This is what the adapted PPE's will give them. Work is important for them to remain occupied and not get involved in other activities and the money will come in useful for them to buy their other needs to supplement the free rations.
A cure for the COVID19 virus is far away and the above methodology will crank up our economy and help us achieve normalcy faster. Thus the approach for fighting the virus needs to change from 'lockdown' of the people to 'locking out' the virus.The Rampaging COVID19 Virus Continues Its Unabated Rise : 29 June 2020
The COVID19 cases in India has jumped from 400,000 to excess of 500,000 in 6 days which is shorter from the earlier figures of 300,000 to 400,000 in just 8 days and the 10 days it took to jump from 200,000 to 300,000. This would mean that the rate of infection is continuing to be on the increase. The government PR machinery is 'touting' the fact of a recovery rate of around 59%. This is neither here nor there. In one sense you are saying that 41% of the patients are dying and with the adding of new cases in excess of 20,000 a day, the pressure on the health system for beds is not going to ease even if 59% recover. The other thing that the government is doing is that it is blaming the 'unlocking' of the economy, a 'necessary evil' for the rise in the number of cases and also to increased testing which is throwing up new cases. This latter argument is like Trumpian logic where the US President is said to have asked testing to be slowed down so that lesser number of cases are recorded. Trump believes that this will help his re-election campaign and those that get infected by the COVID19 virus and die be damned. In any case, the arguments is not about numbers but to save people from being infected which will simultaneously downstream ease the problems of load on our creaking health care system and infrastructure. If we continue opening of the economy and allow people to move around the country which seems be the government strategy currently, then to try and reduce the number of new cases we need to scale up the protection of the individual. From end of March 2020 the government has promoted the use of the mask as a protective device against the virus with relative stringency. But has it worked? The rise in the rate of infection do not support the argument that the use of the mask has been effective. Therefore it is necessary to do something more and that is where a transparent bubble was suggested to be placed on each person's head. Now if that is thought to be unwieldy and unmanageable we can think of transparent face shields which strap on to the back of the head. In addition to the face shields the individual can be asked to wear PPE's along with gloves. These PPE's need not be the ones used by the medical fraternity and emergency services but a stripped down version which provides the basic protection to the individual. The cost for these is not very much and in bulk can come down below Rs. 500. Not only that it has been reported in the papers that with government scaling down orders with PPE manufacturers lately, there is as existing a surplus spare capacity with them of almost 500,000 units per day. To utilise this capacity they have sought permission to export PPE's to South & South East Asian countries. Instead of doing that if they are asked to deliver this capacity within India then it will benefit not only them but also millions of Indians. Therefore thegovernment should on an immediate basis make it mandatory for people to wear complete PPE protection including bubble and/or face shields, gloves and overshoes. By not doing this the government is coming across as irresponsible by highlighting the infection but not making it mandatory that the individual should be adequately protected. The worst part about all this is that the government fully knows that more people will die but they are not taking any concrete action except for paying lip service to the risk by saying that individuals should be more careful and asking State governments to be careful while 'unlocking' the economy. It is time to change the strategy to fight the COVID19 virus and that time is now before things get any worse.The Way Forward In These Continuing Pandemic Times : 23 June 2020
The COVID19 cases in India has jumped from 300,000 to 400,000 in just 8 days, which is shorter from the 10 days it took to jump from 200,000 to 300,000. This would mean that the rate of infection is on the increase. So it is necessary to control the incidence of infection. The government has also put out figures that the infected per Lakh of population is the lowest in India at 30.64 compared to other nations. This has no real meaning since the nations that are being compared with are the developed nations which have much better health care infrastructure than we have. They will be therefore better equipped to cope. While in India the health care system will be overloaded to the extreme to the point of breakdown. At the same time the single day fatalities were the highest on 22 June at 445 which in one sense could be said to be related to the quality of medical treatment. Thus we would see the pandemic growing as we go towards the end of the year. We are nowhere near the peak as far as the spread of the virus is concerned. At the same time, a need has been felt that the economy needs to be opened up which is the correct thing to do. However, this is being done in fits and starts and wherever we see a COVID19 +ve case, offices, institutions, buildings etc. are being shut down. This does not help the opening of the economy since there seems to be no guarantee of goods and services for the smooth functioning of the system. The shutdowns have also been seen in neighbourhoods where a number of COVID19 +ve cases have been detected. Thus uncertainty about the continuity of the normal way of life remains the order of the day. The primary reason for this has been that the focus from the beginning of the onset of the pandemic as even now has been on place protection rather than people or individual protection. We need to change this and on a war footing starting protecting our people which will automatically result in lower infection rates.If people are given PPE, gloves, overshoes and a transparent bubble on their heads then the chances of infection spread to them will be less. The PPE's can be made of any material to suit the weather seasonality in any place. The present costs of a plastic PPE is less than Rs. 700 and the gloves and overshoes of plastic again would not exceed Rs. 50 for both. The transparent bubble which clips on to the PPE at the shoulders can also be made of plastic and should cost about Rs. 100. Thus below Rs. 1000 per person a complete protection gear can be made available. The individual can thus go out freely to do their daily routine without much fear of the infection. At the end of the day the individual upon reaching home can sterilise the protection gear to be ready for use the next day. Even if the individual needs 3 sets of this protection gear, the cost would be below Rs. 3000. The government can provide these or subsidise it or ask the industry to bear the cost. The plastic manufacturing industry will thus get a tremendous boost to their manufacturing activity. With mass manufacturing of the protection gear the cost will definitely come down. The protection gear except for the plastic bubble for the head need not be all plastic and can be of any material and design as long as this provides the desired protection.People with such protection gear as above will help the country fast return to normal.We will not then have to keep moaning about the economy and the functioning of normal activities of our society and allow people to go back, as much as possible, to the way they were living when the pandemic struck.This should be the way forward until a vaccine is found maybe 2 years from now.
Emphasise On Individual Protection Than Place Protection To Fight COVID19 & Keep The Wheels Of The Economy Turning: 17 June 2020
The screaming headlines in most papers across India on 14 Jun 2020 was - COVID19 Cases Move from 2 Lakh Cases to 3 Lakh Cases in 10 Days. Earlier reports had also said that the virus cases in India would peak by Sept 2020 which a study on 15th June, in one of the papers is pushing out to Nov 2020. This was to be expected with the migrant workers returning to their home States, people abroad returning to the country, transportation like air and train services resuming in a skeletal manner. This essentially meant that people are returning to places where they are comfortable with in terms of peace of mind and being facilitated by opening up of transportation. It also signified that those infected among the returnees will in turn spread the infection at their destinations. That is the reason of the current spike in the infection rate and pushing out the peaking schedule. The alternative for dealing with this apart from the present methods being used is to stop the movement of returnees and curtail transportation services. Both are not possible to be done. The first on account of humanity and the second to keep some wheels of the economy moving albeit in a limited manner. This pragmatism is correct but it needs to be expanded.
With the onset of virus pandemic recognised in a India by mid- March 2020 there was no alternate but to go in for lockdown as a containment exercise. Its been almost 3 months since the lockdown was announced by the PM on 24 March 2020 and even to this day the containment and lockdown is being done in a stop-start manner depending on the extent of cases in various areas of the country. We also need to recognise that our living spaces particularly in urban surroundings with mushrooming slums where people live in close proximity are not friendly for lockdown strategies and social distancing measures. Thus the lockdown despite the best intentions of government will remain porous. This exercise of containment we need to do but at the same time we need to try and get the fear of the COVID19 out of people's minds. The existing approach is if there are more number of cases shut the whole area down. Thus the approach for containment is space related, like an area, a building etc. We need to change tack on this and shift to protecting the individual. Give the individual personal protection and let him go out and do his normal work and other activities. Do not restrict him in any way except visit COVID19 patients or hospitals unless he/she is an authorised health care professional. The individual can don a PPE and in addition wear gloves and a transparent bubble on the head which clips on to the PPE at the shoulders. In addition let the individual wear gloves and cover his feet with shoes/other footwear or wear disposable overshoes. These PPE's can be designed to suit the workplace by individual Cos. or establishments and be made of material that is weather friendly. The same with the gloves and overshoes. Sometimes you have to look at things differently. PPE I am using the term to conveniently identify a covering since it is a term that is known. As said the PPE can be designed by each organisation to fit their needs and also by designers for general public to make it a fashion statement. The PPE's can be provided by government to people or the industrial establishments to their workers free of charge or at a subsidised cost. Once the individual is thus protected he will lose his fear of the virus and get back to his working life as quickly as possible. Thus instead of breast beating about the pandemic we can be pro-active and with positivity defeat it. 3 months have passed by and the Indian economy cannot afford the majority of the people to sit at home. We have to become mobile again. The quicker the better. Neither can workers who need to work to earn their daily bread sit at home doing nothing. If we do not get people back to work then we will see large scale starvation and the spread of poverty over which we will have no control. One need not spell out the negative impact of this on our society. Once a vaccine is found for the virus and it is available for everyone we can progressively dispense with the PPE's. With hopes of a vaccine to be freely available expected in about 2 years time, surely we will not have everyone sitting around in their houses till then.
Something needs to be done. We cannot go on like this wailing that the economy will take a massive hit but sit around twiddling our thumbs & waiting for nothing to happen. All services will collapse. Random shortages in goods will be the order of the day since full scale manufacturing is not taking place. Look at government, as it is they would work at around 50% efficiency, now that will reduce to 25%. Nothing will get done or with added on delays if you want to access government services. Stuck at home with nothing to do morbidity and despair will be settling on people's minds particularly our youth and children. We are already seeing domestic violence increasing during the lockdown. Police have also been complaining that the masks are making their work difficult since law breakers cannot be easily identified particularly from CCTV footage. With a transparent bubble on their heads people can be identified more easily. The emphasis should be to restore normalcy. This will eliminate many confusions like having on-line classs for education which could keep out the lesser privileged who do not have or cannot spare a smart phone or any computer, postponing exams that are scheduled etc. All these will become unnecessary and we will revert back to the way we used to be. The only difference will be that we will be fully protected. In a broader sense we have to convey to our people to stand up and fight. I am only proposing to shift the emphasis from place protection to individual protection which allows us to move forward. But vested political interests may not allow this to happen since there is an agenda to keep the virus alive and running since it allows the earning of both political and monetary capital. The present approach of the government seems to be to engender herd immunity by putting at risk the poorer and weaker sections of society who need to go out for work while the more well-off can idle away and can afford to take protection. With more of the poor being infected the goal of 65-70% who have caught the virus would have been achieved but in that process millions would die. Even then it will not guarantee immunity to the privileged from the virus and among this section of society you will also get fatalities. This is a risky and fallacious path and we need to stop it by emphasising on personal protection.
This methodology will also eliminate the fear for the virus in society and the protests by local residents that we see across the country for setting up quarantine centres in neighbourhoods or if a COVID19 clinic or testing centre or hospital is named in certain areas. Gradually people have to realise that just like AIDS the COVID19 is here to stay in our midst and we need to live with it with or without a vaccine.
The government has to quickly change its approach to the above methodology otherwise like we have been climbing the charts of the most affected countries by the COVID19 virus and the way we are going now it will not belong before we sit at the top of the pile with the most number of infected people and also the most number of deaths.
Not Long Before India Is No. 1 Nation Of COVID19 Affected: 15 June 2020
The screaming headlines in most papers across India y/day 14 Jun 2020 was - COVID19 Cases Move from 2 Lakh Cases to 3 Lakh Cases in 10 Days. Earlier reports had also said that the virus cases in India would peak by Sept 2020 which a study today, 15th, in one of the papers is pushing out to Nov 2020. This was to be expected with the migrant workers returning to their home States, people abroad returning to the country, transportation like air and train services resuming in a skeletal manner. This essentially meant that people are returning to places where they are comfortable with in terms of peace of mind and being facilitated by opening up of transportation. It also signified that those infected among the returnees will in turn spread the infection at their destinations. That is the reason of the current spike in the infection rate and pushing out the peaking schedule. The alternative for dealing with this apart from the present methods being used is to stop the movement of returnees and curtail transportation services. Both are not possible to be done. The first on account of humanity and the second to keep some wheels of the economy moving albeit in a limited manner. This pragmatism is correct but it needs to be expanded.
With the onset of virus pandemic recognised in a India by mid- March 2020 there was no alternate but to go in for lockdown as a containment exercise. Its been almost 3 months since the lockdown was announced by the PM on 24 March 2020 and even to this day the containment and lockdown is being done in a stop-start manner depending on the extent of cases in various areas of the country. We also need to recognise that our living spaces particularly in urban surroundings with mushrooming slums where people live in close proximity are not friendly for lockdown strategies and social distancing measures. Thus the lockdown despite the best intentions of government will remain porous. This exercise of containment we need to do but at the same time we need to try and get the fear of the COVID19 out of people's minds. The existing approach is if there are more number of cases shut the whole area down. Thus the approach for containment is space related, like an area, a building etc. We need to change tack on this and shift to protecting the individual. Give the individual personal protection and let him go out and do his normal work and other activities. Do not restrict him in any way except visit COVID19 patients or hospitals unless he/she is an authorised health care professional. The individual can don a PPE and in addition wear gloves and a transparent bubble on the head which clips on to the PPE at the shoulders. In addition let the individual wear gloves and cover his feet with shoes/other footwear or wear disposable overshoes. These PPE's can be designed to suit the workplace by individual Cos. or establishments and be made of material that is weather friendly. The same with the gloves and overshoes. Once the individual is thus protected he will lose his fear of the virus and get back to his working life as quickly as possible. Thus instead of breast beating about the pandemic we can be pro-active and with positivity defeat it. 3 months have passed by and the Indian economy cannot afford the majority of the people to sit at home. Neither can workers who need to work to earn their daily bread. If we do not get people back to work then we will see large scale starvation and the spread of poverty over which we will have no control. One need not spell out the negative impact of such on our society. The PPE's can be provided by government to people or the industrial establishments to their workers free of charge or at a subsidised cost. Once a vaccine is found for the virus and it is available for everyone we can progressively dispense with the PPE's. With hopes of a vaccine to be freely available expected in about 2 years time, surely we will not have everyone sitting around in their houses till then.
This methodology will also eliminate the fear for the virus in society and the protests by local residents that we see across the country for setting up quarantine centres in neighbourhoods or if a COVID19 clinic or testing centre or hospital is named in certain areas. Gradually people have to realise that just like AIDS the COVID19 is here to stay in our midst and we need to live with it with or without a vaccine.
The government has to quickly change its approach to the above methodology otherwise like we have been climbing the charts of the most affected countries by the COVID19 virus and the way we are going now it will not belong before we sit at the top of the pile with the most number of infected people and also the most number of deaths.Provide PPE's To All Citizens As Protection Against The Coronavirus: 10 June 2020
Since the onset of the COVID19 pandemic the efforts that are being reflected in the media to the crisis are mostly towards a cure, building health care infrastructure, taking care of the victims, protection to the uninfected population, sympathy towards health care personnel and those of the lesser privileged sectors of population who are seen to be infected more. There have been some efforts at opening up of economic activity so that we can move forward. But essentially what has been lacking is pragmatism that recognises that we may have to live with the virus and find a way forward. The problem nowadays is that breast beating is fast becoming a fashion and focusing attention on how much you are doing for the poor and affected is good politics at least in India. There is also always an agenda to maintain a crisis situation on the pandemic since it feeds avarice at all levels. While agreeing that we need to help the underprivileged, one thinks that if we allow them to go back to doing what they were doing before the pandemic like earning their livelihood or whatever, they would be more happy. Therefore using PPE protection for all with added usage of a transparent plastic bubble for the head and wearing gloves would be the best method to move forward.
The problem with our government was that initially it wanted to play safe fearing to be accused of endangering lives. Lives in any case were being lost. In that sense the government had been seen to be in short of vision and purpose taking the safe way out by ordering lockdowns in random frequency. While the health ministry has been at the centre of the crisis one thought that the related ministries like finance, railways, human development and home would give sane advice by taking stock of the situation and looking beyond the crisis. However, what we have been seeing is that all of them have been stirring the same pandemic containment and treatment pot that is on the boil and the old adage repeating itself - That too many cooks spoil the broth.
Here let us take a quick review of the actions of this government since the virus struck India. On March 24 the government announced a complete lockdown across the country without any notice which has been extended in stages until now for almost 2 and a half months with various degrees of severity depending on the number of people affected in various regions. Like they say the objective was honourable but it failed to take into account that given the way Indian society works the lockdown would not be total but remain porous. It also did not recognise that our people are endemically lazy and the continuous lockdown would pander to that trait. The other thing that the government completely overlooked was the migrant workers situation. With no work and no income these workers became restive. Added to that was the fear of the unknown infection that had no cure. At these times psychologically people like to be near their family so that they can suffer together and either survive or die. With the lockdown, movement of the migrant workers was blocked. What should have been done was that as soon as regular train services were curtailed, the Railways should have launched the Shramik Specials and transported those who wanted to go back home. It is understandable that the government did not want to spread the virus into the other areas of the country hitherto unaffected particularly the rural hinterland. The migrant workers mentioned here can be considered to be the expanded definition including domestic help etc. What happened after that was that the migrant workers took matters into their own hands and started leaving for home from every location in any manner, some walking, some cycling etc. This set the cat among the pigeons inside the government. Then in consultation with the States the Shramik Specials were launched. Even there much time was lost with debates on who would bear '85%' of the cost of the railway fare. This dithering was unnecessary and the BJP lost a great opportunity of shutting out the Congress & the Opposition out of government forever. In terms of the infection for those of the migrant workers in the cities by remaining there led more of them getting infected. Thus while the infection would have been possibly less if the migrant workers had been moved earlier, what has happened the home States have seen a spike in infection since the migrant workers returned. Then we had the issue of the Shramik Specials trains setting out for Bihar reaching Orissa and similar goof-ups resulting in the migrant workers being taken for a mini-Bharat Darshan. This when the Indian Railways prides itself to be the largest railway network in the world run efficiently and wanting to run Super Fast trains. These incidents have been a blot on the Indian Railways reputation. In summary you really cannot blame the government much since they were plunged into a completely new predicament and were threshing around for the best ways to deal with the situation.
But the migrant workers were given a raw deal by our government and treated as the Children Of A Lesser God. Sensitivity should have been shown from the outset that they also have emotions and also strong bonds with their family back home. But though we say caste does not figure so much in our responses, one feels that it is ingrained in our psyches and reflects in the way we deal with the lesser privileged sections of society. This is being said since the migrant workers are no less important than those Indians who work abroad. In fact the migrant workers directly support the economy as is being realised after they have left their place of work and are being wooed with hikes in salaries and air fares for return to work. They also remit money home to support their families. While workers abroad only remit money home. So why are the local migrant workers treated like step-children? Where workers and other of our countrymen living and stranded abroad were repatriated by arranging flights, our local migrant workers were beaten up and harassed by police and looted by wayside goondas when they were walking home. If the present government led by the BJP had arrangedfor free flights for the local migrant workers then they would have reaped a golden political harvest by setting the foundation of a single party rule in India of the BJP.
In any case let us return to the myopia of the present government which are wearing, one can say, Modi blinkers. What Modi sees is what everyone sees. No other minister opens his or her mouth to say anything that is contrary to what Modi thinks or says. With the coronavirus crisis unfolding and Modi and the Health Ministry tackling it, the other Ministries like Finance and Labour should have been looking at ways and means to keep the fires of the economy burning and bringing to the attention of the PM the negatives of pursuing with the lockdown. None of them did that since particularly our Finance Minister, with all due respect to her being a lady, has no long term vision and/or lateral thinking ability. Where financial assistance was required at the individual level among the poor and the unemployed workers she came out with a loan package and interest subsidies. For a starving person who is looking for cash to feed his stomach, of what use is a subsidised loan since the person may not even know what it means and how to go about getting one. Thus the government acted as a Kabuliwala or moneylender who like Shylock was looking to extract his pound of flesh. Not only that none of the other economic measures announced up until now make for any meaning to stimulate and revive the the economy. This is because the measures are mostly a re-hash of the earlier budgetary initiatives and again relate mostly to interest subsidies and re-classification of industries to fit them into eligible categories. These will not work since there is no demand and no manufacturer will seek the subsidised credit since they do not believe that they can sell their products. Hence measures are required to stimulate demand and that can be done by putting money into people's hands.
There is also the much touted 'Atmanirbhar' slogan presently greatly vilified in the migrant workers context. But the Finance Ministry and government seem to be taking steps contrary to this self-reliance concept since in the last slew of economic measures announced foreign equity is being allowed into as also enhanced in a range of sectors including defence. This seems to be the strategy of government to get these passed under cover of the coronavirus smokescreen since otherwise they would have been put to public scrutiny and debate. This is rather unfortunate.
Concluding one must predict that the coronavirus infection spread in India will be prolonged with various facilities being opened up like malls, restaurants, transportation etc. across the country with no comprehensive protection being given to the people who are active at work or are in the public places like for education etc. The approach of the government seems to be to deliberately remove curbs and encourage herd immunity to set in. This will result in untold number of deaths like in the US and the situation will fast go out of control. To counteract this the best thing would be to open up but provide PPE to each person going out in public that includes wearing a transparent plastic bubble on your head and making the wearing of gloves compulsory. Then whether there is infection or not, cure or not people can go about their normal livelihood activities limiting the chances of contracting infection and the wheels of the economy will start turning and pick up pace as time progresses.
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