Lockdown 2.0 - Night Curfews, rising cases & possibilities.
- Nishka Pant
- Mar 23, 2021
- 3 min read
India recorded 260,000 fresh Covid -19 cases last week- one of the worst weekly increases since the pandemic began in early February last year. The 7-day average has increased from 19,909 on 3rd July 2020 to 37,249 on 21st March 2021. This comes after almost all the restrictions on social gatherings have been removed and domestic and international travel services have resumed. As of March 2021, Maharashtra has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country: 2.48M.
While there is a lot of speculation around the notion of a second nation-wide lockdown, we cannot expect another lockdown. The after-effect of the first coronavirus induced lockdown on our nation’s economy was largely disruptive. In fact, the lockdown sparked the first contraction that the Indian economy has seen in four decades. India’s GDP shrunk by 23.9% in the first quarter of the financial year. A lockdown will certainly hamper the growth of the Indian economy and the government will certainly not risk the growth of the economy by imposing another lockdown, especially when the economy is back on track. In a recent interview, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the economy’s revival is better than anticipated, so rating agencies are revising their growth rates for India. “ Today the global growth path is positive and within that India’s growth path is a notch higher,” she said. In fact, the Prime Minister while announcing that the national lockdown was being lifted slowly, back in mid-2020, said that the economy and the rising coronavirus cases have to be handled together. This indicates that the government will deal with this sudden rise of cases while dealing with other matters simultaneously and will not prioritize any one over the others.
Instead of another nation-wide lockdown, the government is using various other but equally efficient measures to do the same. Inoculation is being ramped up from the supply and execution point of view. Not only is this an extremely important step in the country’s fight against the virus but it will also help the pharmaceutical industry to prepare for the future. Government hospitals across the country have been administrating two free of cost doses of the vaccine to frontline workers as well as citizens aged above 60 and now even 45. Furthermore, random testing of the virus is also taking place in public places in Mumbai. In addition to inoculation and testing, state governments like those of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have imposed stricter restrictions in major cities. The government in the worst-hit- Indian state (Maharashtra) extended the new coronavirus guidelines till March 31. Night curfews were announced in at least ten districts including Aurangabad, Amravati, Jalna, Parbhani and Yavatmal. The state government also announced that theatres and auditoriums will run at 50 per cent capacity till March 31. Private sector offices have also been asked to cooperate with 50 per cent staff capacity and heads of government and semi-government offices have been empowered to determine the number of people to call in. Similar measures have been taken by various other state governments as well. Night curfews and a curfew on Sunday have also been imposed in cities like Dehradun, Ludhiana, Amritsar and cities in Madhya Pradesh.
It is quite evident that the state governments as well as the central government are implementing alternative measures to deal with the virus in an organized and calm manner. Imposing another lockdown will only create a state of havoc and panic among the people along with bringing a big setback to the country’s economy. We can only hope that these measures do the job unless we want to go back in time, to be precise - rewind 365days.
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