[saisree]

Bold and very welcoming decision by PM. Hope we break the chain and stop this spreading. Isolation is the best medicine we have now.
Apart from this benefits we will see lesser pollution and more savings. All the stressed roads will breathe in.

People shouldn’t celebrate Holi in April 15th when the lockdown completes.

[Starfire]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

A slight correction to this. The Covid-19 virus has a R Naught number of 3. Which means that instead of a base number of 2 exponential it is 3 exponential. The R Naught number is a measure of the spread rate of a virus and measures how many people on average a single person infects.
To give an example, a disease with R Naught of 2 will affect 1024 people in 10 transmission cycles (2^10) whereas Covid 19 will affect 59049 people in 10 transmission cycles (3^10). If you want to understand this concept you can watch the movie Contagion.

True that buddy. As long as R0 is more than 1, the disease will spread between people and sooner or later cause an epidemic.
However, I'm not trying to take a lecture on epidemiology here but just abiding my duty of being a medical healthcare provider and keeping people informed in a language as lucid as possible.
It doesn't change the broad fact that the virus will exponentially spread in large numbers if not controlled now.

Also, I've seen Contagion, a great movie, but the R0 explanation which you asked me to learn from was flawed. When Alan Krumwiede was explaining what an R0 of 2 means in the film, he claims that the number of cases daily will progress 2, 4, 16, 256, 65536, and so on. This is the quadratic series, which is incorrect and would mean that by the fourth day, each person is infecting 256 others, and by the sixth day, 4,294,967,296 would have fallen ill. The correct progression would be geometric; i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32...
Now you know why I didn't want to make it an epidemiology class.

https://youtu.be/Afh7_Pn0bLQ

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

This was inevitable! Good that the decision was not delayed any further by the government.

Forward thinking would have been if all international incoming travellers were mandatorily quarantined for 28 days - instead of being checked for temperature and adviced to stay home, which many violated. This is a foreign virus and that was a sure shot solution. It would have been just a case of thousands v/s the whole country of people in home quarantine now. But then, it is always easier to say such things in hindsight.

Was anticipating this move from the government and fully in support. Will be a hard month, but we don't have another solution to this problem.

[bluevolt]

Both Grofers and Big Basket are not operational. Essential services anyone?

[SoumenD]

God forbid if there's any medical emergency can one drive to the hospital in own car or even that's not allowed?

Just checking as a friend is undergoing treatment and needs to visit hospital every fortnight. He was supposed to be there this Monday but due to lockdown checked with doc and delayed it by a week. But next week he needs to be at hospital.

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Both grogers and big basket are not operational. Essential services anyone?

Let's wait a while for them to sort their delivery model. This is a massive logistical challenge and I'm sure they'll figure it out.

Originally Posted by SoumenD

God forbid if there's any medical emergency can one drive to the hospital in own car or even that's not allowed?

Ought to be allowed based on the doctors prescription. However if it is feasible, it's better to delay because facilities will be likely be full and stretched.

[fhdowntheline]

People need to adjust to a new way of life, give up on gourmet meals and substitute with single dish. Lets not expect Big Basket or Grofers to deliver anthing more than essential staples and I wont be surprised to see even these being restricted in terms of weight or quantity per single instance of delivery.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by SoumenD

God forbid if there's any medical emergency can one drive to the hospital in own car or even that's not allowed?

Just checking as a friend is undergoing treatment and needs to visit hospital every fortnight. He was supposed to be there this Monday but due to lockdown checked with doc and delayed it by a week. But next week he needs to be at hospital.

You very well can drive for Emergencies. Ensure to carry sufficient documentary evidence regarding the same. It can even be the parking fee receipt from previous day of the hospital you are visiting or anything else. Since it is your friend who is undergoing the treatment I am sure there will be sufficient documentary proof for this.

Deal with the cops in a calm and composed manner even if they are agitated and venting frustration on you.

Also ensure you don't travel with unnecessary passengers and keep it limited to just yourself unless absolutely necessary when visiting the hospital.

[padmrajravi]

The lockdown was inevitable. There is nothing worth complementing in enforcing a lockdown, rather It is just a natural extension of any pandemic. What differentiates an efficient government from others is the plan that is in place to help the people get through the lockdown period. Let us see how our state and central governments fare in this test.

A large part of India does not get food on the table if the earning member does not go out every single day. What happens to them? All of us in this group are probably fortunate enough to have the money to stock up weeks of food. What happens to people who don't? What is the plan to prevent a scenario where people will have to fight for distributed essential packets? What is there to prevent the cops from misbehaving with the people? That is where the real test is.

[Gansan]

The respective state governments will have to take care of that, and I hope they do. The TN government has announced free distribution of sufficient basic provisions and rice to last for a month, and Rs 1000 cash, to each BPL family through PDS shops. I think they are also going to deliver the food or equivalent provisions for Aanganwadi children and noon meal scheme children of schools, directly at their homes. I heard of Kerala government announcing similar schemes.

[GTO]

Mod Note: A soft reminder of our rules. No political discussions please. Thank you!

[CliffHanger]

We have to limit, reduce and control the spread before the rainy season begins in June. People sneezing and coughing everywhere, which usually happens whenever there is a climate change in India, is a recipe for disaster.

Government should have a plan to do everything possible to limit and control the spread by early April, and go all out to reduce and eradicate the disease by early May.

Considering our population density, if we do not do the above before the beginning of raining season, we are headed for a catastrophe.

[WorkingGuru]

Wrote this down last night & hesitated to post, but here goes a few things I would like to highlight :

1) The scale of the effort is unprecedented because this opportunity of preventing the onset of "Stage 3" will never come back. It is the last (& only) line of defence against community spread. India has neither the capacity to build ventilators, nor are we in an amazing financial position. Implementation too may have snags, but this extreme move was a necessity, it was not an option or an exercise comparable to, say, demonetisation.

2) The "Lock-down" is an instruction, NOT an appeal. Compliance is medically mandatory & legally obligatory. There is no option like "Can we do it?" that some news anchors were implying just after the announcement. They even started saying "entire April", while the Lock-Down is until mid-April.

3) Don't harbour
a) Hatred : towards any country, as nobody knows/could control what actually happened (don't count information that clearly has Agenda), and also, India may need assistance from them. Choose your battles wisely.

b) Blind faith : Be extra cautious when told to throw caution to the wind by seemingly harmless individuals/friends.

c) Rumors : Our trusted friend may have compelling 'evidence' for any theory, but that may not help the next course of action. That apart, there CAN be different POVs & versions of other peoples unique experience of real actual truth itself.

4) Do Trust the Prime Minister, as the head of our sovereign nation, he deserves it. Skepticism is OK, we can verify other facts later, but cynicism at this juncture is NOT OK.

5) Don't become a captive audience to any 1 single mainstream NEWS-media channel.

Agreed, they may have immediate information, but with their sensational "opinion" mongering and our obvious free undivided-attention, it is important to remember that they will first serve the interest of those who pay them i.e. corporates/others.

6) Voluntarily comply & execute tasks that the Govt communicates through official channels, as they announce it.

Often, in their excitement to discuss & debate, and in the excitement to exercise their right to dissent, some journalists and 'activists' (well meaning and others, both) might see it in their interest to pose questions that may seem to indirectly cast aspersions on the PM/Govt, with the specific intent to discourage & demotivate public just enough to put a venomous droplet of doubt which may cause citizens to hesitate in complying with what is being asked of them by the State.

In this regard, with god as witness, I DO hope and pray that Indian journalists and other experts, while they operate in their best intellectual capacity, do so in good faith, as the country is navigating through prevention of possibility of extraordinarily serious consequences.

7) Economic loss for country was anyways till 31st March, now it'll be till 15th April. Economic loss for corporate India will be less than social burden if the virus had negligently been allowed to spread and create havoc. Fiscal Deficit is probably going to bloat up so much that we as a nation will need to take a hit to afford it.

P.S. : I guess it'll not be illegal to reveal that I didn't vote for this party, but I believe that only the present PM seems to have the capacity to implement this & get the people to comply with it.

P.P.S. : Dear Extroverts, my sincerest sympathies.

[srini1785]

Bold and necessary step. Sometimes you just need to do what is necessary instead of thinking of the " What if".

P.S : Look at the positives. when was the last time you remember a summer vacation for adults?.

[Malyaj]

I hope local leaders rise up to the challenge and do their bit. I have heard from multiple reliable sources that people in villages are largely oblivious to the severity of the crisis. They have little comprehension of how it propagates and why quarantine is necessary. Many are going about business as usual, visiting markets, visiting relatives and hosting guests. Police forces in villages also tend to behave in a lax manner as they are one of them. Hope at least they take it seriously.