[fordday]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

The worthies who insisted a blanket lockdown is best and we should bang pots and scream at the virus are long gone. Most people left talking on these threads are either providing useful information or a nuanced viewpoint, or are here to seek both of those.

This is heartbreaking - https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/what-mi...-to-us-2209556 :(

I really feel for the downtrodden lower strata of our society who have to face life and death situations now.
If the lockdown continues most will get severely affected. With not much news coming from these section we cannot imagine how brutal life is for them now.
Even if the lockdown hasn't been there, this section would have been the worst hit and would have been left out of healthcare when the well to do arrives in the hospitals for the same treatment.

Sitting at the comfort of my home, I don't know what can be done except that I donated to some of the NGOs feeding these people. I am even afraid of going out and supplying food myself because of one police trouble and other being supposed encroachment of the local rowdy/ wannabe politician's domain. There have been instances of good samaritans being assaulted for distributing free food, by these rowdy elements.

But the most disappointing comment came from our CJI when he said "If they are being provided meals, then why do they need money for meals?". It wasn't money for meals literally.

[Nalin1]

People have described the support/non-support of a full lockdown in many different ways-

Economy or lives
Lives or lives
Money or lives
Livelihood or lives

What about probability or certainty?

Anyone in India getting infected by the virus is always only a probability. Whether he is a cop wielding a lathi on the streets or someone stepping out to buy groceries or someone who has not even stepped out of their houses!. Even including the medical staff who are working tirelessly (a huge salute and hats off to them).

This probability can be anything between 1% to 99%. But can never be 100% I think?

But shutting down the country completely means the consequences are a certainty or 100%.

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

This is heartbreaking - https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/what-mi...-to-us-2209556 :(

Originally Posted by fordday

I really feel for the downtrodden lower strata of our society who have to face life and death situations now.
If the lockdown continues most will get severely affected. With not much news coming from these section we cannot imagine how brutal life is for them now.

Even if the lockdown hasn't been there, this section would have been the worst hit and would have been left out of healthcare when the well to do arrives in the hospitals for the same treatment....

But the most disappointing comment came from our CJI when he said "If they are being provided meals, then why do they need money for meals?". It wasn't money for meals literally.

Ironically, in the present day, I am sure that some of the poor feel that they would be much better off if they actually got infected with Covid. Because, at least then, they would get someone's attention and their entire family would get taken to a quarantine center where they will be given food and medicine, not to mention a roof over their head.

For many of the people in this economic strata, beating the odds of their current circumstances is way harder than beating the odds of a Covid infection.

And with time, practically everyone in the larger population will start to reach that exact same conclusion regarding the odds in their own lives.

Originally Posted by Nalin1

People have described the support/non-support of a full lockdown in many different ways-

Economy or lives
Lives or lives
Money or lives
Livelihood or lives

What about probability or certainty?

Anyone in India getting infected by the virus is always only a probability. ..

This probability can be anything between 1% to 99%. But can never be 100% I think?

But shutting down the country completely means the consequences are a certainty or 100%.

This is the argument that I have been making all along.

[hareshjethwani]

There is this daily work labourer who used to work for my neighbouring office warehouse, he succumbed to the virus. He was the sole bread earner for his family. Wonder if the government bails out special packages for the economically weaker sections, specially for the above situations. God bless all.

[Miyata]

WHO Issues Criteria to Lift COVID-19 Lockdowns

six criteria to lift restrictions:

1. Transmission is controlled.
   
2. Health system capacity is in place to detect, test, isolate, and treat every case and trace every contact.
   
3. Outbreak risks are minimized in special settings, such as nursing homes.
   
4. Preventive measures are in place in workplaces, schools, and essential businesses.
   
5. The risk of people bringing the virus in from other countries is managed.
   
6. Communities are fully educated, engaged, and empowered to adjust to the new normal.

Lockdowns must be replaced with some type of strategy, which will “change behaviors for the foreseeable future”. This includes personal hygiene and physical distancing measures. In the meantime, countries must increase efforts to test, quarantine, treat, and trace the virus.

The only way to get out of this is to find the virus.

[racer_ash]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

People have described the support/non-support of a full lockdown in many different ways-

Economy or lives
Lives or lives
Money or lives
Livelihood or lives

What about probability or certainty?

Anyone in India getting infected by the virus is always only a probability. Whether he is a cop wielding a lathi on the streets or someone stepping out to buy groceries or someone who has not even stepped out of their houses!. Even including the medical staff who are working tirelessly (a huge salute and hats off to them).

This probability can be anything between 1% to 99%. But can never be 100% I think?

But shutting down the country completely means the consequences are a certainty or 100%.

Ok. So the economy is not shut 100%. Essential services are still up. So are stuff like agriculture purchase from the recent harvest as well as support services like police, ambulance,sanitation etc. So are many office jobs that can be managed via WFH. So the argument saying the economy is shut 100% is not correct.

Second, by not enforcing the lockdown, the probability of the virus spreading is also increasing. So if its 1% now, it will increase to maybe 3 or 4% (just an educated guess). Now for a country like India with a huge population, every 1% increase in infection rate equates to almost 1.3crore. With a strike rate of even 1%, that is almost 1lakh 30 thousand dead. Do we really want that to happen?

[am1m]

I'm wondering who is really following the lock down strictly? Is it just the people like us who are online most of the time, safe at home, getting updates and urging others (also online) to maintain a complete lock down? I went outside to get a can of drinking water. I used to use the bike once in 2 days to shop, but since so many people are saying we're going to save lakhs of people from dying by strictly following complete lockdown, I carried the can back home. Good exercise anyway. Felt like an idiot because there were enough bikes and cars doing the rounds.

And these visuals, I really see no difference between any of them in terms of maintaining social distancing:

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1249988807241367554
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1249931739360870400
https://twitter.com/ANINewsUP/status...82930471936001
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1249932928060207105

IMHO we might be better placed to save many people by testing more. And strictly monitoring those numbers so states are held accountable. But hey, what do I know.

[poloman]

I am getting tired of discussions on this thread. Some guys are repeating the same points the nth time as if lock down is the root cause of all evils in this country right now. WHO is advising lock down. Doctors are advising lock down, politicians from right to left are in favor of lock down, Trump is in favor of lock down..!! His adviser is saying locking down USA much early might have saved more lives. Socialist and capitalistic countries, Monarchies and Kingdoms are all enforcing lock down.


But some are cutting and pasting some reports from some left leaning websites and argue lock down is creating havoc and misery in the country. This may be true to some extent. But they don't offer any solutions. If we had not enforced lock down and if lakhs died like US or Europe, same people will be shouting from rooftops saying that the Govt favored capitalists and industrialists and sacrificed poor working class, who in any way will be the major casualty.

Let us admit, India is a poor country. Lock down or otherwise you take a camera out and venture in to some poor areas. You will see several heart wrenching scenes. Do we have a magical solutions for all these, unfortunately not. But some people in media have a habit of linking such stories to some evolving situations and amplify their propaganda. We should not be tallying deaths or misery one situation v/s another since we are in unchartered territories fighting a stubborn pandemic which has even reached Amazon tribes as we speak.

Request everyone not to cut and paste news website stories unless it adds value or information. For every left leaning website there can be a right leaning website which will give diametrically opposite views. If you read Fox and CNN you will think there are two USAs.
So let us not try to bias others by posting news articles which you like or favor your viewpoints

[subraiyr]

Originally Posted by racer_ash

Second, by not enforcing the lockdown, the probability of the virus spreading is also increasing. So if its 1% now, it will increase to maybe 3 or 4% (just an educated guess). Now for a country like India with a huge population, every 1% increase in infection rate equates to almost 1.3crore. With a strike rate of even 1%, that is almost 1lakh 30 thousand dead. Do we really want that to happen?

OK, I might sound coming in from the Left and i will probably get a few brickbats on this. My belief is that whenever the lockdown ends, there will be a flare up of the viral infection. This is 100% probability. Why do you want to keep flattening the curve as a reason and not look at how do we exit.

Against the Covid projections minus lockdown, in 2018 we had close to 1.5lakh death due to traffic accidents. Now does that mean that we reduce and regulate traffic in the streets. This is definitely not apple to apple comparison. But look at the numbers and one has to really think of Covid Vs Economy Vs Life of the Common man.

An example - my maid works in 5 different houses and today she cannot work. All of us continue to pay her salary, but a some of them have started questioning this. And this is in a community of educated folks. Guess what will happen to a lot of such house helps who work in houses and their employers refuse to pay. Secondly, she lives in a typical chawltry and finds it difficult to get basic provisions. Mind you 2 of her meals happen at her employers' house so that's a bust for her for the last 21 days

At some point of time, we have to really think about a 1 to 2% mortality rate vs the survival of 50 to 60% of humans in India. We already are hearing news of suicides, deaths due to starvation etc. We are hitting summer and will see droughts in some regions, for other place we will see floods due to monsoon and a plethora of suicides in the agricultural community

Just a few thoughts

[splitsecond]

Originally Posted by poloman

Some how I am getting tired of discussions on this thread. Some guys are repeating the same points the nth time as if lock down is the root cause of all evils in this country right now. WHO is advising lock down. Doctors are advising lock down, politicians from right to left are in favor of lock down, Trump is in favor of lock down..!! His adviser is saying locking down USA much early might have saved more lives. Socialist and capitalistic countries, Monarchies and Kingdoms are all enforcing lock down.


But some are cutting and pasting some reports from some left leaning websites and argue lock down is creating havoc and misery in the country. This may be true to some extent. But they don't offer any solutions. If we had not enforced lock down and if lakhs died like US or Europe, same people will be shouting from rooftops saying that the Govt favored capitalists and industrialists and sacrificed poor working class, who in any way will be the major casualty.

Your are absolutely correct, all world nations finally came to the same conclusion. Without controlling the virus spread i don't know how economy is going to run(as some expects) when people are dieing on your left and right, we already missed the taxi lets hope we dont miss the bus also.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by subraiyr

My belief is that whenever the lockdown ends, there will be a flare up of the viral infection. This is 100% probability.

Absolutely. I have written the same thing earlier also. Lockdowns is a way to stagger the total number of infected. It may not reduce the total number of infected. Morgan Stanley has said that rolling lockdowns may continue for one year more (they said for US, but the same thing holds for other countries also).

[ishan12]

Originally Posted by poloman

I am getting tired of discussions on this thread. Some guys are repeating the same points the nth time as if lock down is the root cause of all evils in this country right now. WHO is advising lock down. Doctors are advising lock down, politicians from right to left are in favor of lock down, Trump is in favor of lock down..!! His adviser is saying locking down USA much early might have saved more lives. Socialist and capitalistic countries, Monarchies and Kingdoms are all enforcing lock down.


But some are cutting and pasting some reports from some left leaning websites and argue lock down is creating havoc and misery in the country. This may be true to some extent. But they don't offer any solutions. If we had not enforced lock down and if lakhs died like US or Europe, same people will be shouting from rooftops saying that the Govt favored capitalists and industrialists and sacrificed poor working class, who in any way will be the major casualty.

Request everyone not to cut and paste news website stories unless it adds value or information. For every left leaning website there can be a right leaning website which will give diametrically opposite views. If you read Fox and CNN you will think there are two USAs.
So let us not try to bias others by posting news articles which you like or favor your viewpoints

I had almost typed my post on similar line and just then I read yours. Absolutely agreed with everything you said. What all countries are basically doing is trying to choose the lesser evil. Some countries like US choose to delay the lock down and now paying the price in terms of disease and death. We on the other hand have been very successful in containing the spread due to lockdown. I remember reading a report stating that if we had chosen a relaxed approach to lock down like some European countries, we could have been at around 4 lack cases by now and that would have been way beyond what our health care infra can manage. There will always be people criticizing the efforts of the authorities (due to various reasons) and that's a good thing, no one should have a clean chit and mistakes must be pointed out and corrected. But just writing negatively/ positively for the sake of it like some left/ right leaning media houses do is not justified. Also, these days any article you read online must be taken with a truck load of salt, since first you need to figure which side the media house is aligned.

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by poloman

I am getting tired of discussions on this thread. Some guys are repeating the same points the nth time as if lock down is the root cause of all evils in this country right now. WHO is advising lock down. Doctors are advising lock down, politicians from right to left are in favor of lock down, Trump is in favor of lock down..!! His adviser is saying locking down USA much early might have saved more lives. Socialist and capitalistic countries, Monarchies and Kingdoms are all enforcing lock down.

WHO is the world's doctor. They have only one objective - Public health. As a specialist organization, they have been intentionally unburdened so that they can make sure that the a part of world community's focus remains on one function. In terms of singularity of purpose, WHO is similar to the IMF or the World Bank or Interpol. Each organization is tasked with providing recommendations in line with their specialties.

But, a national administration has to take recommendations from such specialist organizations and then take decisions on how best to apply those recommendations while weighing other factors that the recommending organization did not have to bother to think about.

Think of it this way. You get sick and your doctor advises bed-rest for a couple of days. That is his job. That is what he has to do. But, then you have to decide if you can afford that rest. Maybe you have an important client meeting that will decide the outcome of your job or that of your team. Or maybe you are caring for a family member who is more sick than you are. Or maybe your only sibling, or child, is getting married. Or whatever. What would you do? You would take the doctor's advise and then decide to apply it in full, or in part, or not at all, based on what you feel is appropriate for your life's circumstances, isn't it? That really is the discussion here.

WHO's advise for a lockdown is important and must be considered. Also important is to weigh our ability to afford the lockdown. As things stand now, the cost of the measures that we are imposing to combat the virus are proving to be enormously high in light of our economic circumstances as a country. Other countries may (or may not) be able to afford a lockdown. But, that is their internal decision based on their finances, demographics, etc. We have to make the right decision based on our internal picture.

Originally Posted by poloman

But some are cutting and pasting some reports from some left leaning websites and argue lock down is creating havoc and misery in the country...

Let us admit, India is a poor country. Lock down or otherwise you take a camera out and venture in to some poor areas.....

For every left leaning website there can be a right leaning website which will give diametrically opposite views. If you read Fox and CNN you will think there are two USAs.

Where does political ideology come in here? The links I posted are from NDTV, Foxnews, Indian Express, etc. These are genuine news organizations.

OK, even if we say that some of them may lean one or the other way politically, that has no bearing on the substance of stories that I provided the links for. I don't think any of us provided links to opinion pieces. I certainly did not.

What I provided are straightforward reporting of facts on the ground. It is true that poor people are surviving on salt, rice and water. It is true that a man tried to salvage spilt milk that dogs were also drinking.

Just because these stories were reported by NDTV, they aren't exactly true, or their truth doesn't matter, is it? Is that what you are saying?

Also, I agree with you that we already had plenty of problems. A lot of it is systemic and deep-rooted. No doubt. But, this is the first time that we are explicitly forcing a choice on the economically weak with no redressal systems in place. So, the fall out of this decision is definitely on us; and that fallout is in many ways removed from the ills that already plagued our society. Let us please not brush that under the carpet.

The real questions to be asked here are the same ones that I have repeated. Do we know for sure that the lockdown will save more lives in the long run? We don't know for sure. Given the virus's re-emergence risks, is a lockdown even a solution in the short-run? We don't know that for sure either. And yet, we have taken the hard decision of clamming down hard on sectors of the economy that actually drive finances that allow us to function. Be advised that services industries and administrative professions being open for business, either physically or virtually is only in the short run. With the basic wealth creators like manufacturing being largely shut, we are on very thin ice. There was talk of re-opening agriculture. But, I have not heard anything definite yet.

As many people have pointed out, the lockdown has taken various forms across the globe. Many countries are allowing big parts of their economy to function with some strict measures. India's lockdown is the strictest in the world in terms of scope - both in terms of breadth and depth. That is what is causing all the consternation.

[racer_ash]

^^ Alright sir. What according to you is the mode by which this pandemic needs to be handled? Could you please elaborate so we can get an idea?

Let's say, the economy is opened up without containing the spread and identifying hotspots (which is what this lockdown exercise is aimed at). Is it the expectation that everyone goes on with their daily duties as though nothing happened? Or are you saying, open up key sectors? If so, the definition of key sectors will change as per the individual. For me, IT is a key sector because I am part of it. I don't think everyone here will agree with me hence the govt. is taking the call on our behalf.

If we do open up the economy without proper containment measures, then we will cripple it anyway. On one hand, you will have people dying by the thousands from the virus, on the other hand, the number of hotspots will multiply beyond the capacity of the current healthcare capacity. People at one point in time will self quarantine out of fear and stop coming to work on their own free will and we are back to square one.

[nikhn]

While we keep going in circles about the benefits and ill-effects of the lockdown, here is an interesting story from Bengaluru.

To quote some information about the auto driver who is under "forced" quarantine,

Speaking to TOI from Harsha Hotel, Shivajinagar, that has been converted into a public quarantine facility, Mazhi is unapologetic. I am healthy and need no medicine. These people have made a public showpiece of me and now my entire locality looks at me like I’m a terrorist,"he said.

In quarantine, Mazhi has become the doctors’ biggest headache. “We have even changed the angles of cameras to keep a closer watch on him,” the hotel manager said.

“At home I eat fish curry and eggs every day. How can I eat upma for breakfast and dal and rice for lunch every day? These doctors will kill me with bad food,” he said.

How can someone force the "poor" fellow to eat what he doesn't want to and try to kill him. This is all happening with the lockdown in place and the government expecting people to adhere and follow it. Now just imagine if there wasn't a lockdown and this guy refuses to quarantine and go about his daily work in order to feed his family. I pity the poor souls who would have been infected "for no fault of theirs".