Day #22: Lockdown extension...being fear-centric!

10th April 2020: Some 'experts' panel - we don't know who are these and when this panel was constituted - in Tamil Nadu has 'recommended' to the government to extend the lock down by another 15 days this evening news informs. And the decision will be made tomorrow by the government. Tomorrow the central government as well will consult with all the states to evolve a strategy to extend or limit the lock down. The indications are that the lock down is being extended. 

While the lock down seems to be a safe way to ensure that people's movement is contained, unless there is a rigorous identification and isolation of infected cases, there is no point in extending the lock down. In the case of Tamil Nadu, one of the important numbers that we never get to hear from the government is how may testing kits did they initially start with?  There were supposedly 100,000 testing kits arriving on the "9th or 10th" and now we get to know that it may not arrive for couple of days more and my guess is that it may not be 100,000 either. I will be surprised if they get only half the supply of the testing kits. 

Even if we assume that there is a  case of 100,000 kits being made available, with each person testing positive having to undergo test twice at least (if they are a celebrity, they get tested 5 times), we are talking about capacity to test of about 50,000 positive cases at the maximum in a state of 70 million people. This is in a state that is reporting positive cases of about 60 per day (even with the limited testing capacity today) and total close to 1000 already.  In the meanwhile there is an order from the Central government that all procurement are to be handled directly by them and re-distributed to the states rather than the states procure the equipment themselves.  I had stated it early on that the economic stress will kill more people in this country than the virus itself and the extension of the lock down will only push more poor people going without pay for another 15 days or more. 

Meanwhile, someone infected got away from a district govt. hospital and disappeared before the results could come, due to 'clerical error'. Now if you have dealt with government long enough, you know what that means. If this one person, travels to other parts of  the state, purchases rations in different locations and interacts with people - already the morning traffic in the city roads resembles near normal except for the lack of public transport - then you may have a 100 more people infected by this one 'clerical error', before he is caught. These 100 people may or may not show symptoms over the 21 days! So, to contain that we need to extend the lock down by 21 days from the day this person is  nabbed again. Such arguments can go on prolonging the lock down forever. 

As a governing system, we present a picture of being confidently clueless about what to do. We have worked out the optics good, there are confident sounding government officials giving daily briefing, shuffling through papers,  reading out important sounding numbers. This is not a PLAN or a STRATEGY visible. IF WE DON'T IDENTIFY, ISOLATE AND QUARANTINE THOSE INFECTED QUICKLY ENOUGH, any amount of extension is meaningless. You can't do that without working out the supply of testing kits and you can't be waiting for Delhi to procure and send them over to Tamil Nadu. Governments work on Orders and Guidelines. Already the Orders issued 2 weeks ago look outdated and long time ago. A friend who wants to convert his production facility (of a similar business) to produce PPEs has been rejected travel permit by the Corporation in the city citing an Government Order that only permitted essential commodities to be transported beyond the city limit issued 2 weeks ago! 

There are already cases reported from Korea and Japan that the virus  re-appears for the people who have completed their quarantine and other health professionals across the world are saying this could become seasonal virus. So, we NOT ONLY NEED TO EVOLVE A PLAN FOR THE PEOPLE INFECTED NOW, BUT  ALSO CAPACITY TO MONITOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN CLEARED. And if this is going to be seasonal, we cannot be going through lock down every year?!  

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Since a conversation late evening, I have been thinking about the statement of Vivekananda, 'abhay, abhay', he had said. That the fundamental nature of the Indian tradition has been to talk about fearlessness and the capacity to assert that freedom in every walk of life. Fear-centric response sound alien to many of our people.  Precaution, yes, we need to, but, what are we afraid of? 

Each Nation responds to a pandemic based on its own fundamental character. American President's talking about "saving every life" of American citizens makes sense, they are afraid of death and have gone to wars with countries because one American has died. We are not having any such problems. People die of malnutrition, road accidents, carelessness of medical professionals, wrong medication, air pollution, etc., every day in India.  An Indian political leader that gives clearance to destroying of forests in the middle of a lock down, stating on television that 'we want to save every life' isn't convincing anyone, least of all the people who face death everyday.  

A hierarchy that assumes that all knowledge resides in the top, in position of power, centralizes every system. If such hierarchy driven system becomes fear-centered, it starts being alienated from the larger tradition of the people and every rule will only be met irreverence or disdain by the masses. It can be pushed through heavy handed methods only for a short term, the security personnel will be tired soon enough and masses don't get tired of trying, because they understand and represent the tradition of being fearless. To have faith in that tradition is fundamental. If this lock down can be rated as 'partially successful' in its objective of keeping people isolated at homes, the extension will be even less successful. Instead if we evaluate the lock down based on the performance of the governments (as it should be) to identify, isolate and attend to the cases rigorously, the extension is a proof of their failure.

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