[hondafanboy]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The manner of a lockdown with zero preparation by the Govt is what I am talking of in my last post.

Do you have any thoughts on what exact preparation the government should have done before locking down the country ? And in what manner the lockdown should have happened.

Please, I am not questioning your thought. Just trying to understand what other options were on the table.

I am thinking that may be we should have accepted the risk i.e. certain number of infected people and the deaths by further delaying the lockdown by 7 days.

e.g. Instead of locking down the country from the midnight of 24th March, say we will do that from April 1- April 30th

That would have given 7 days for preparation
1. Let people go out and stock groceries etc. ( this happened between 8-12 PM anyway.
2. Ask migrate workers to go back to their hometowns ( happening it anyway) .
3. Give Services and IT companies time to implement work from home.
4. Provide necessary support and training to police officers to handle situation between April1-30th.
5. Anything else that needed planning

[Kosfactor]

I can work from home and get uninterrupted salary - But I have not lost my heart, I understand that I'm a minority.

I am against this shutdown that is similar to burning the house down to kill a rat. ( Malayalam proverb).

Yesterday evening we did a nice weekly shopping, everyone is wearing masks have to wait in line with enough distance outside to enter the super market and maintain distance inside as well. Nice system to ensure safety being implemented by the owner of the super market.

Question is, why can't we do this every where and open the country up? The government has already shown how incapable it is to handle the economy, just as we were trying to pick up ourselves off from the disastrous demonetization and GST now a lockdown just to blame corona for all their failures of the past 6 years , what confidence do I have that they can handle something like this? None.

Let the country run with adequate safe guards, allow state governments to do their job. First week of the month is coming up, salaries will come to the fortunate few, people have needs and they will go out and get what they want. Enforce everyone who goes out to any public facility to wear masks and sanitize hands like our supermarket owner.
And if a work can be done at home, ask companies to enforce it for the time being.

Just like how a lower economic growth pushes more people into poverty (yep) , a stalled economy will - Kill! For the sort of population we have, the numbers will be staggering, but unreported as usual with a lot of numbers these days.

Finally, It is natural for the masses to follow a strong leader, believe in their intent and be blind towards their actions. This follower mentality is not an individual's fault and therefore I totally understand the other side of this conversation.

[hondafanboy]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

I am against this shutdown that is similar to burning the house down to kill a rat. ( Malayalam proverb).

Interesting proverb.

You mean, follow what Brazil is doing ? Accept the risk and keep going. https://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...le31189205.ece

[ramzsys]

Everyone in my locality crowded around the makeshift meat stalls - a usual scene on any given sunday, but not in a lock down sunday!

''What do you get when you cross a pandemic with a society that disregards it and treats social distancing like trash?''

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

I am against this shutdown that is similar to burning the house down to kill a rat. ( Malayalam proverb).

Pray tell me, what is the alternative?
Do you think keeping our economy going while people get sick with the virus, pass along to their family, neighbors, colleagues and society, increase the spread, collapse the healthcare system, increase the dead count is better than a few days of pain?
Do we want prolonged painful chemo therapy with no end in sight or a surgery with a higher chance of recovery?
Money can be earned, but not the lives. Economy can be rebuilt, but not families. It all depends on what a individual prefers.

[darklord]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

Yesterday evening we did a nice weekly shopping, everyone is wearing masks have to wait in line with enough distance outside to enter the super market and maintain distance inside as well. Nice system to ensure safety being implemented by the owner of the super market.

Question is, why can't we do this every where and open the country up?

You do understand that enough distance was able to be maintained because there were less people due to the lock down?

I do not live in Bangalore but I visit every now and then and if Sunday crowds are anything to go by at D-Mart Bommasandra, I guess the queue with social distancing markers in place would stretch till Hosur.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by hondafanboy

...
e.g. Instead of locking down the country from the midnight of 24th March, say we will do that from April 1- April 30th...

Quite the reverse, we needed to prepare before things got out of hand, not act like the proverb about 'digging a well when there's already a raging fire' goes. Lockdown always demanded having a firm plan to utilize the little time we bought with it.

The sort of advance prep we needed was not the type necessarily visible at the consumer end, but one in the background. Ensuring the following would've helped to a large extent:

1. Track and isolate (mandatory preventive quarantine) everyone returning from abroad and direct contacts. Branch outwards as necessary.

2. Brief healthcare groups at national/state/district levels, ensure adequate supply of equipment to start with, setup testing and isolation to ensure they work in rotation out of contact with each other, reducing risk to themselves and avoiding contagion.

3. Plan to re-purpose all available hi-tech assembly lines for manufacturing primary critical care equipment (as is beginning to happen now) and others needed by the healthcare workforce.

4. Invoke the Disaster Mgmt. Act, supplement with invoking the Essential Commodities Act to plan working supply lines for all essentials, provide assistance where necessary.

I could write up a long list, but you get the gist.


I'm not saying all of this had to be prepped 100% or worked perfectly from Day 1 (impossible for the size of our population and limitations of our resources), but none of this would've created mass panic if done in advance, and did not need an element of surprise. We had months to plan this stuff. Some of the emergency measures should actually be maintained in a ready-to-go stance. What's the point having a disaster mgmt. policy that takes days/weeks to get moving?

Make no mistake, the panic we see around us is borne out of not trusting the system to cope up and help if things go wrong, and we had plenty of time (maybe several weeks) to prepare and demonstrate otherwise.

We're doing most of it now, reactively, but time is of the essence in a disaster and we wasted a ton of it.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

I am against this shutdown that is similar to burning the house down to kill a rat. ( Malayalam proverb).

Yesterday evening we did a nice weekly shopping, everyone is wearing masks have to wait in line with enough distance outside to enter the super market and maintain distance inside as well. Nice system to ensure safety being implemented by the owner of the super market.

Question is, why can't we do this every where and open the country up?

Yes, we can solve with just social distancing. Developed economies are doing just that. The risk with this approach is a large percentage of the population is going to fall sick and the healthcare system must be capable of handling the large influx of patients (Germany has 8 beds per 1000). Unfortunately, our country's healthcare system cannot cope with this epidemic (India has 0.7 beds per 1000).

What the lockdown does is it delays the spread of the epidemic and gives breathing space for healthcare to ramp up to handle the influx.

The COVID-19 has 2 solutions:
1) The majority of the population gets infected, survive with good care and develops resistance. (current option)
2) Vaccination to develop immunity (not yet available).

Going via option 1, the lockdown is trying to reduce no. of possible deaths.

Originally Posted by vb-san

Whether it was implemented hastily or otherwise, I feel the lockdown was indeed the right decision.

In the situation we found ourselves, though maybe it came a week late, the lockdown was the right step and commend the Central Govt for taking the decision. But our concern was lack of planning, zero preparation for relief for those directly affected by lockdown, either before the lockdown or immediately after lockdown and no plan yet, after 5 days of lockdown.

The only plan visible so far is the freehand given to the police to go hard on the public and ensure no one is seen on roads.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I think my post was clear that I accept the lock down. We left it so late that no other alternative was feasible. The manner of a lockdown with zero preparation by the Govt is what I am talking of in my last post.

. I hope the new measures like (Coronavirus pandemic: PMO sets up high-level panels to deal with situation post lock-down; restore normalcy) will lighten the after-effects.

[Nalin1]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

Question is, why can't we do this every where and open the country up? The government has already shown how incapable it is to handle the economy, just as we were trying to pick up ourselves off from the disastrous demonetization and GST now a lockdown just to blame corona for all their failures of the past 6 years , what confidence do I have that they can handle something like this? None.

Let the country run with adequate safe guards, allow state governments to do their job. First week of the month is coming up, salaries will come to the fortunate few, people have needs and they will go out and get what they want. Enforce everyone who goes out to any public facility to wear masks and sanitize hands like our supermarket owner.
And if a work can be done at home, ask companies to enforce it for the time being.

I am fully with you. Locking down a country is not the solution.

Restricted movements, mandatory use of masks, sanitizers, cutting down mall timings, WFH for whom it is possible, entry to supermarkets and shops with a token, staggered timings for petrol bunks and offices, intense testing of suspect cases and their families are some solutions that come to my mind.

Without a lockdown, they say there is a chance of getting the virus.

Stopping EVERYTHING will ruin lives anyway with or without virus.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

Pray tell me, what is the alternative?
Do you think keeping our economy going while people get sick with the virus, pass along to their family, neighbors, colleagues and society, increase the spread, collapse the healthcare system, increase the dead count is better than a few days of pain?
Do we want prolonged painful chemo therapy with no end in sight or a surgery with a higher chance of recovery?
Money can be earned, but not the lives. Economy can be rebuilt, but not families. It all depends on what a individual prefers.

The alternative is to simply let most things work with social distancing enforced. As it is, the lockdown in our country won't be even 50% successful as many people will ignore it, many don't have the luxury as they live in cramped accommodations and the list of exemptions is so large that it would exempt a large percentage of the population. What is needed is to follow the example shown by Singapore, South Korea and Japan. Let the country run while people keep distance, wear masks and santise their hands. Ask factories to have good ventilation or medical grade filtration and space out the workers a bit. They could run at 30 to 50% capacity in two shifts if needed. At least some people would have employment- perhaps by rotation and things would remain available. Then we come to breaking the chain that keeps things running. Today if a person, even a doctor or policeman loses or breaks his phone, he can't get a replacement. How would he attend to emergency calls? Same goes for a laptop, router and so on. If I want to buy a new phone, TV, laptop, tablet or anything and Croma or Amazon or Reliance Digital can safely deliver it, why ban it? It would give much needed tax to the government and equally needed sales to the businesses.

Now we come to health care issues. Unfortunately, at least 50% of our people don't even have access to good quality healthcare, never mind ICUs and ventilators. We often hear of dozens of children dying due to a lack of oxygen. Now, suddenly, everyone wants the best possible health care for all. Everyday 22500 people die in India from all sources. I bet half of these could have been saved if we had good first responders and proper health care availability including preventative health care. A considerable percentage of our population doesn't even have toilets at home. How can you expect them to handle a lock down? What we have done is created a lot of panic, unemployment and misery before the disease strikes. If there is a poor family of 5 with 3 breadwinners, there might have been one person sick. At least the other 2 could have supported the family. Now we have made all 5 destitute and jobless. How do you expect them to support the sick person? In addition, we will need a war like effort to build medical supplies, hospitals, clothing, medicines etc. After we have crippled the economy where workers from factories have fled on foot, truck drivers have gone to remote villages and most factories and offices shut down, then how do you expect us to quickly mobilise resources when needed in a few weeks? Even of we were to fully lift the lockdown tomorrow, it would take at least 2 weeks for things to return to normal- perhaps longer if people remain fearful to go back to work and stay in their villages. So many people are needed to make even essential supplies work. For making a roti, you need the farmer to be able to tend to his crop daily, labour to weed it, harvest it and truck drivers to transport it. Grain markets to collect it, further transport to warehouses, then mills to grind the wheat, workers to pack it and load it on trucks and so on. Then you need mechanics for repairing the trucks, tyre manufacturers and tyre shops to change tyres, so many other needed manufacturers for spare parts for vehicles and machinery, drivers and labourers everywhere in the chain. Now we have reports that companies manufacturing essential medicines are stuck as other factories making packaging and wrappers are shut. So we will have to open them. When you have to grant so many exemptions, you will see that the lock down is just not possible.

What is needed is to close crowded places like schools, theatres, old town areas etc and let the rest open with social distancing. Let a mall or restaurant open but allow limited number of people to enter or dine there so they are not close to each other. All the resources used on enforcing this shutdown can be used for this purpose. We should be focused on building hospitals, getting supplies like masks and ventilators and getting our economy ready to face the upcoming problems.

As an example, traffic accidents kill around 1.5 lakh Indians each year. We can make that number near zero by banning all traffic. Why don't we show the same zeal? The answer if that the country would ground to a halt. So we take a pragmatic approach where we build foothpaths (or should at least), install traffic lights, build pedestrian overpasses, have some police enforcement and then accept that there will be some loss of life. We need a similar balanced approach here.

[volkman10]

To put a stop to migrant workers exodus, Punjab allows factories to open.

Punjab government took a major decision and given a go ahead to the factories in state which are producing non essential goods to resume operations but subject to fulfillment of several conditions

Some of the conditions include the factories will have to give the facility of free lodging, food and medical in house to their workers and also ensure that all the measures including social distancing too is followed by the workers.

The decision comes in the wake of hue and cry raised by several business associations which warned government that if the workers leave Punjab they will never be able to re-open their factories as almost 90 percent of the labour employed in the factories is from other states, mainly Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal etc.

Link

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by DeKay

Seriously, what's your point? Is the shutdown bad? I guess you really do know better than almost all health experts, doctors, epidemiologists and leaders of the world, so in your own words, ''please explain with facts'':

Sorry, if I don't agree with you. And V.Narayan has clarified everything so beautifully, I have to thank him for saving me the trouble.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Excuse me for butting in to opine on a question not directed at me.
Shutdown is just a timeout, not the end-game.

Originally Posted by Red Liner

i wonder how long the govt can actually extend this lock down with all seriousness.

Thank you Chetan_Rao! Neatly stated. Actually, I'm now going to say something even more unpopular - the lockdown is no solution at all for India. Never was. I am not blaming the government here, just that it cannot be implemented the way the "experts" want it. A few weeks ago, I was in agreement with the experts, but changed my mind after pondering over the pros and cons. Red Liner - my thoughts exactly!

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

All,
...

Thank you sir! I could not have provided a better response.

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

The alternative is to simply let most things work with social distancing enforced.

People are not following social distancing even with lock down and it is getting hard to force people to stay at home, do you really think that just asking people to follow social distancing and keeping businesses open will work?

Mind you, most of the cases in India are from people who have foreign travel history and despite strict instructions, these people are roaming about spreading the infection around. These are the ones with education but still behaving like idiots.

In the scenario you suggested, if the infection spreads beyond our healthcare capacity. People will die in large numbers and economy will suffer anyway.
What good is an economy if there is no people around?

I just don't want a scenario where a doctor has to decide between saving my life over my parents. And this is not a hypothetical scenario, this is currently being played out in Italy and now in Spain.

[Turbanator]

Some of the efforts by Gurdwara committee in Delhi. Truly commendable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hiH...ature=youtu.be

Credits to the original unknown guy who made this Whatsapp video.

[wanderer4x4]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

I can work from home and get uninterrupted salary - But I have not lost my heart, I understand that I'm a minority... .... ...........

Yesterday evening we did a nice weekly shopping, everyone is wearing masks have to wait in line with enough distance outside to enter the super market and maintain distance inside as well. Nice system to ensure safety being implemented by the owner of the super market.

Question is, why can't we do this every where and open the country up?

You have yourself given the answer to this question in the first para. Yes, we are a minority and for the teeming millions of our country a mall or supermarket with masks and social distancing is a luxury that they do not have access to. Hope you've seen the haats and bazaars where hundreds of thousands go for their needs. Let alone buyers, just to keep the sellers separated with some distance will need acres and hectares of space which is impossible. And even if given the space, do you think we are disciplined enough to strictly follow the social distancing and safe usage of masks? Oh, and talking of masks, it's easy for us to say everyone should use the mask and go along merrily, but how many actually do know the correct usage and handling? And even if every citizen miraculously is trained overnight, is it even possible to set up production lines overnight for billions of masks that will be required?

Considering all such constraints, the lockdown is the little breathing space that our country has tried to squeeze out just to try to remain one step ahead of the virus. It's inevitable that the virus will hit us, only that the lockdown may just act as the shock absorber that will reduce the harsh bump. Though you never know.

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

Finally, It is natural for the masses to follow a strong leader, believe in their intent and be blind towards their actions. This follower mentality is not an individual's fault and therefore I totally understand the other side of this conversation.

BTW, if "the other side of the conversation" above refers to the views expressed here supporting the lockdown and you are comparing those with such views to blind followers with herd mentality, then it'll be an insult to the free thinking and cognitive abilities of a sizeable count of members here.