In addressing this, the trend in the incidence of Covid-19, the spread and the fatalities are primarily what are in focus. The news ticker on television highlights a creeping increase in numbers, and talk about ‘flattening the curve’ is the new ‘cool’.

When no new cases are reported in an area, it is assumed to be a good sign. This is, of course, misleading. Numbers tested are way too low and the extent of asymptomatic Covid-19 positive cases is a big unknown. To complicate matters, being asymptomatic gives the virus an added dimension of stealth in its spread, since its capacity to inflict damage on another unsuspecting host is not diminished. Further, going by reports, most of those who test positive suffer mild symptoms that don’t progress so much as to require hospitalization and critical care.  

It is worth remembering that the lockdown was never meant to make the virus disappear or reduce its virulence. For that we will have to wait for remedies and vaccines to be created, tested and proven. The lockdown could at best slow the rate of spread. As a country, the lockdown bought us precious time to augment our health and critical care infrastructure and resources, including ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), hospitals, doctors, nurses and para-medical staff, testing facilities, kits and consumables.

It is this augmentation and the extent of readiness to deal with what I anticipate is an inevitable surge in Covid-19 positive cases in the next few months that needs to be transparently shared along with accurate reporting of case trends. I imagine that every State along with the Central Government is gearing up on an urgent footing. Giving publicity to details of readied facilities and their locations, the work in progress, and the protocols in place that the public needs to know is crucial. It will be just as important as the ongoing mass education on personal hygiene, the use of masks, and maintaining physical distance.

Net-net, the ramped-up healthcare capacity needs to match or be greater than the anticipated hospitalizations arising out of Covid-19 infections once the lockdown is lifted.

The lockdown is a dramatic short-term measure to contain the spread of infection. Lifting it could well see a dramatic rise in cases. While the lessons in personal hygiene may have been learnt and masks may become the norm for some time, maintaining physical distance poses a huge challenge. While the organized / formal sector may mandate compliance and even succeed, they are a small segment of the workforce and a small fraction of society. In our country, keeping a minimum physical distance at work, on the way to work, and at home is not possible for the vast majority.

I think partial lifting of the lockdown is likely to be riddled with complications, contradictions and added tangible and intangible costs. The economy is a complex interconnected web. Tinkering with the economy through partial reopening, and prolonged shutdown in many parts is likely to kill jobs, savings and people’s ability to psychologically cope and sustain. For many, life has been on an uncertain, prolonged pause – be it exams, in the case of schoolchildren, college admissions, career decisions, marriage, divorce, attending to health issues such as surgeries, and so on. For the poor and the disadvantaged, it will be catastrophic.

We may also see the stress of withholding and postponing, of isolation and restraints on movement along with the accelerated erosion of earnings and savings give rise to social tensions / unrest. Latent animosities temporarily suspended to collectively engage a ‘common enemy’ risk coming back with greater virulence. So, lifting the lockdown has implications for public health, the economy, law and order, livelihoods, and the process of living itself. Make-shift adjustments in the short run have to translate into long-lasting arrangements and improvements all round.

We are going to need rapid innovation in work, workflow, workplace design and service delivery to meet the virus containment challenge. The lockdown has surely given much food for thought.

In the meanwhile, we just have to come to terms with the fact that some of us may test positive for the virus in the coming months, hope that testing facilities match demand, and we get the medical attention that is called for should it be our turn to show up at the hospital.

Image from Wallpaper Flare.