Coronavirus pandemic outbreak: Three strong lessons that people learnt during lockdown

New Delhi, Apr 01: Just a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide 21-day lockdown to fight against the outbreak of Covid-19, it seems to be a successful call by the Centre.

With several pictures from across the country show that essential products are available and services continue to be provided, there are several loopholes in letting people to follow the lockdown.

But, so far we have learnt three lessons from the 21-day nationwide lockdown.

1. Exodus of migrant workers

The exodus of migrant workers has explained that India's poor and most vulnerable society was hard hit by the economic disruption caused by the lockdown.

It was also seen that arrangements to provide shelter and food were not put in place for migrant workers during the crisis and this caused a major tragedy after thousands of migrants decided to walk back to their homes, hundreds of kilometres away, defying the entire logic of the lockdown and enhancing the risk of people in rural areas getting infected.

2. Lack of faith in the government

It all began after people started panic buying of essential supplies on the first two days of the lockdown. This took place despite the Centre and state governments assured that these supplies will be maintained. However, the absence of clear rules and police officials' disproportionate actions against the people added to shortages. If these are not marked and consistently corrected in the upcoming days, the people can be simply seen neglecting the rules and wander on the streets.

3. Delay in testing and providing PPEs to health workers

While the Centre and state governments are using the lockdown period to ramp up testing and provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to doctors, the fact is that India is still testing at very low levels in relation to its population.

There have been outbreaks of cases in key clusters and delay in providing PPEs to health workers. Also, the number of ventilators will remain abysmally short if cases surge. All these needs to be looked into to maintain a peaceful lockdown.