[_chikku]

It seems, by the end of lockdown only IT employees - 50% of them will be working at home. Rest everyone will be out. In Bangalore cops got 44 lakh application for passes.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/cit...s-2130716.html

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

... keeping ourselves locked we can get over this disease? If yes, then surely I am with all you but if you can’t assure, then I would like to face the issue now instead of facing after 2 months.

You have to be a little forgiving and have patience please - this forum did not go out and get the opinions of those on the road and those starving/suffering right now. We as the privileged can only think of ourselves. In the entire world there are only four countries not going with the lock-down - Brazil, Belarus, Turkmenistan and Nicaragua. Brazil's president, Bolsonaro, has come under criticism from every quarter, including his own government. I've been following Brazil's handling of this crisis and it is too early to say if he has played his cards right. But I suspect we are going to follow his lead - I already got a delivery from Amazon today (cooking oil), rural factories are going to open, etc. There is no way we are going to keep this lockdown in the true sense. The politicians are smart too. They will accede to the middle class and the upper class by not lifting the lockdown technically, but at the same time they will allow the rest to do as they please, consider it a "jugaad"! This will be done by favoring certain people who can pull strings, pay bribes and the like. Barring a miracle vaccine or cure we have no choice but to lift the lock down. People will die, and those in power can shift the blame to "those who did not respect the lockdown". We may NEVER EXIT this lockdown, but you will see the brilliance of our masters sooner than you think.

[Nalin1]

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?

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%.

Quoting my own post to highlight something which happened in the apartment that I live in.

Just like all gated communities, here too the RWA has banned the entry of cooks, maids and housekeeping staff. Needless to mention, the entire building is in a mess with the corridors, parking area, staircases etc overflowing with dust and dirt. Though the residents did some minor cleaning jobs, that was clearly not enough.

A couple of days, amongst all the muck there was a dead bandicoot/big rat in the parking area. That set the alarm bells ringing!. An emergency call was made to call at least a couple of housekeepers to remove, clean up the entire parking area and do some disinfection.

The same housekeepers were barred from entering due to the virus risk even though they had absolutely no symptoms or any other health issues. Now in the last 15 days or so, we did not have a clue whether they were actually inside their houses or anywhere and if they had any health issues presently. But who cared? There was only a probability of a virus scare if we let them in.

But if we don't, it was a certainty that there will be an outbreak of a plague.

When confronted with only those two options and no other route to escape, the answer is straightforward.

[haria]

Let's be cynical here.

we can classify the people in 3 loosely bound buckets

- Group#1 can stand/tolerate lock-down for a long duration (Say even 6 months+)

- Group#2 can just about manage to make things move
(mostly can manage upto say, 2 months or so)

-Group#3 who are in dire needs, leave alone months, they cannot sustain for weeks also.


One thing we can accept without question - All the categories are in pain - There is financial melt down, supplies are hit, all are suffering.

But one thing we have to remember is that most of the business are run / owned / managed by the people in the group #1 and maybe to a smaller extent group #2.
Do you think these people will come out and do their jobs/activities when the virus is causing mayhem all around ?(with the horror stories of Italy/Mew York, etc being splashed in all the news channels) They will definitely want to play it safe and either go extremely slow on their operations or even totally shut it down.

Many vegetable shops I know of have closed their business (even though they are allowed to function and work), because the owners/staff are worried about the virus.

So whichever way you look at it, Lockdown or no lockdown, the group#3 is in trouble. That's the sad reality.

It is easy to take pot shots at the administration - whatever they are doing will not be enough and there will be enough and more loopholes / mistakes which can fill newspapers for days together.

The primary reason for this ? Nobody really anticipated and planned for a situation like this. I mean countries like the US and Russia who has stockpiled so much of warheads and weaponry and who spends billions on their military are totally on their knees in front of this.

I mean, in the last 70 years (After WWII) when is the last time the whole world stopped their business and shutdown everything ?


One positive outcome I anticipate is lot of countries are going to take a hard look at their health infrastructure and much needed funds are going to be pumped into this.

The primary purpose of lockdown in my opinion is not to eliminate the virus - but to give oneself some time buffer to prepare contingency plans. I hope and pray that India has also utilized the time well.

At least some news indicate that they have - there is a war footing effort in making isolation wards out of railway coaches, preparation of hospitals at various district levels, ordering and stockpiling of PPEs, essential medicines etc.
I have also never seen this amount of close co-ordination b/w all the states and the centre, in spite of their political differences!

When the lockdown is lifted, there is every possibility that there will be a deluge of cases and I hope the health infra can handle it.

[A M]

I am not in favour of a complete lockdown. The aim is to limit the spread. What we should do is :

1. Identify the areas that have active cases and classify them as Red/Orange based on the number of active cases. Areas with no cases are green areas. - Local administrations have mostly figured this out.

2. Create a core zone and a buffer zone in Red and Orange areas and seal them. - Is being done.

3. Test every person in these areas twice. The second test to be done 20 days after the first. Identify the cases as and when they are discovered and start disaggregating the area into smaller clusters of Red, Orange and Green zones. Keep testing every person in these areas. - Not being done.

4. Irrespective of the classification of the area (Red, Orange or Green), identify the vulnerable groups i.e. age 60 and above, immunocompromised patients, and patients with respiratory issues like Asthama, COPD, TB etc. and encourage them to self-isolate or if they are unable to do it themselves, govt can identify social service groups/NGOs to help these people. - Not being done as of now.

5. Set up sentinel surveillance for SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) across the country including Green areas. - Done.

6. Open up the Green areas(identified in point 1)but follow the 14-day quarantine guidelines for all interstate travels. - Being followed by some states.

[DrPriyankT]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Thanks Doctor. I am sure you and your colleagues must be doing everything you can but when a Doctor tells me to pray, I have no more questions.

Stay safe and take care.

Doctors are doing theirs best and so are the paramedics and supporting staff. Also credit due to the virologists who are working day in and out to develop more sensitive, specific and cheaper tests for CoVID, whilst also working for vaccines, however we do need our fair share of luck for the fact that viruses and microbes in general have a tendency to mutate. 99% of the times the mutations are harmless, but it’s the remaining 1% which is tricky. An example is the drug resistant mutations seen in Staphylococcus Aureus, E.Coli ,Mycobacterium TB and many other microbes.

Going off topic, once this CoVID episode is over, I pray people develop the urgency to rid India of TB which is a way bigger problem here, and it’s a disease we know much about.

[carboy]

https://scroll.in/latest/959271/covi...s-shows-survey

90% of migrant workers got no help from government or employers, shows survey.
About 50% of the 11,000 workers who were surveyed said they had stocks of ration that would only last them less than a day.
70% had not received any cooked food. As many as 89% had not been paid by their employers at all during the lockdown, the report added.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

When confronted with only those two options and no other route to escape, the answer is straightforward.

That anecdote is illustrative indeed! Made me laugh as well. This is the issue here, while there is certainly a need for restrictions, the restrictions are being enforced based on what the person with whatever arbit authority over a specific area/building thinks is correct. When they want to enforce something on others, they will say that "this is a serious situation and one must make sacrifices." BUT when they need an exception to be made, they will.

Restrictions/relaxations should be based on medical reasoning, and then they should be uniform.

[Before anyone says "what would you have done if there was a dead rat in your house?", I've already cleaned dead rats, birds, etc from my terrace, personally a few times. It's a yearly chore during the rains. ]

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Just like all gated communities, here too the RWA has banned the entry of cooks, maids and housekeeping staff. Needless to mention, the entire building is in a mess with the corridors, parking area, staircases etc overflowing with dust and dirt. Though the residents did some minor cleaning jobs, that was clearly not enough.

A couple of days, amongst all the muck there was a dead bandicoot/big rat in the parking area. That set the alarm bells ringing!. An emergency call was made to call at least a couple of housekeepers to remove, clean up the entire parking area and do some disinfection.

The same housekeepers were barred from entering due to the virus risk even though they had absolutely no symptoms or any other health issues. Now in the last 15 days or so, we did not have a clue whether they were actually inside their houses or anywhere and if they had any health issues presently. But who cared? There was only a probability of a virus scare if we let them in.

But if we don't, it was a certainty that there will be an outbreak of a plague.

When confronted with only those two options and no other route to escape, the answer is straightforward.

What a bunch of incompetent people. Is there not a single person who can pick up a dead rat and dispose of it? Gotta love upper-middle-class Indian mentality, where we can't be bothered to do any 'dirty' work.

There is no 'certainty' of plague from a dead rat, unless the rat had the plague bacteria to begin with.

[locusjag]

I have a question; the emergency passes that people are using are only for crossing districts right?

We live in Chennai and my uncle's brain tumor has made a comeback (I don't know what to call it, but it's been a year since they cut out a tumor and he has finished chemo & radiotherapy). An MRI yesterday confirmed a fresh tumor. He has undergone Coronavirus testing today already, since this is now mandatory before any hospital will admit a patient for anything.

I need to help my aunt and uncle by driving them to collect the result of the test tomorrow and if it is negative, I need to drive them to Apollo cancer specialty hospital in Royapettah for getting admitted. The tumor removal surgery will happen next.

Technically, I will be venturing from Chengalpet district (Tambaram area) into Chennai district (Royapettah). Will a pass be necessary for us?

[BANDHAV]

Originally Posted by locusjag

I have a question; the emergency passes that people are using are only for crossing districts right?

Pass is required for local movement also. That is the case here in Delhi-NCR.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by BANDHAV

Pass is required for local movement also. That is the case here in Delhi-NCR.

I don't have time to apply for it now. It takes 24 hours for the pass issual it seems. I'll be damned if I run into any hard-hearted cops tomorrow!

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by locusjag

... ... I'll be damned if I run into any hard-hearted cops tomorrow!

All the best to you and your uncle.

I don't know what to do, but maybe you can get a "paper" (on Whatsapp?) from the hospital confirming that you are taking your uncle for emergency admittance.

About Dead Rats... I do agree with the scorn poured on those who can't dispose of a dead rat. True, since living in India and acquiring local ways, it is a task I've deputed to the maid. But not always.

About lockdown 2.0 (I pour scorn on this kind of jargonizing as well, but hey, it serves a purpose, I suppose)... One disadvantage is that V1 has been reasonably simple. V2, not so much. It is not so easy to know what can be done and who can do it.

About daily/migrant workers... I don't think I have posted anywhere my sympathy for them. Not that it is any use: nobody can eat sympathy! But anyway... The simple fact that Indian virus numbers don't even figure on the worlds charts indicates (apart from the fact that the west doesn't have much interest in our country, but that's another story) that we got something right from the start. The immediate plight of daily/migrant workers is one of the things that India got wrong. It is wrong from the humane standpoint, and it is wrong from the infection standpoint, as it has thrown many thousands of them together. Yes, it is easy to wise after the event, but nobody can say they don't know about these people. Preventing them travelling may have been unpopular, but at least it could have been done in a way that included housing and feeding them from day one.

[wheelguy]

Needs of the hour, and things need to be done while the lockdown is in place are:

• Development of reliable and not so bulky testing kits that give immediate reports/results.

• Large scale production of the developed kits.

• Nation wide distribution of those kits to the local bodies and hospitals.

• Testing of the populations, first priority is hot spot areas, and then the further surroundings etc.

• Isolating the positive patients and treating them.

There are many other things like PPE kits, and ventilators etc which I didn't mention.

[Nalin1]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

There is no 'certainty' of plague from a dead rat, unless the rat had the plague bacteria to begin with.

you are right!. But do you think people will think that far ahead? It was visible danger versus invisible enemy. The scales then tilted.