A critical phase

While business opens, states must be ready for a spike in Covid cases

Lockdown 4.0 may not live up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of being “totally different” from the previous ones but it marks an improvement over the earlier positions, when everything was dictated by the Centre. In an unspoken acknowledgement that the spread of Covid-19 is asymmetric within the infinite variety of India’s geography and urban sprawl, the latest lockdown guidelines have chosen to set out the broad parameters till May 31 and left the details to the states. The fresh rules allow for a considerable relaxation in non-containment zones with all markets (but not malls), offices, industries, and businesses being allowed to open. Educational institutions will remain closed. Restrictions on air travel (domestic and international) and Metro rail services will continue. Religious gatherings will also continue to be banned. Most sensible is the decision to loosen the provisions for downloading the Aarogya Setu tracking app from “compulsory” to “advisory” for office-goers, a response, perhaps, to the widespread discomfiture about its weak privacy norms and the vulnerability to hacking.

Some states have moved swiftly to establish their own norms outside the containment zones. Karnataka has banned the entry of people from four states — Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu — that have the highest number of Covid-19 cases and will impose a complete lockdown on Sundays. The state has, however, relaxed the rules for business significantly. Kerala has allowed urban bus services to resume but not inter-state and inter-district services. Delhi has done the same, but unclear still are the norms for travel in the mega-metropolis of the National Capital Region, where a system of official passes had been instituted by the Haryana, Noida, and Ghaziabad authorities, and issued work from home advisories. Puducherry has allowed the sale of liquor. 

This gradual opening up will ease some of the pressure on state economies, hit by plummeting tax revenues as a result of the halt to business activities for almost two months. However, even as businesses gradually start opening, there will still be considerable uncertainty. A number of businesses had raised concern over the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, which would still be in force and could result in harassment.

The bigger concern is how states will cope with the inevitable spike in Covid-19 cases, as the sharp rise in the number of cases over the past two weeks has demonstrated. Given the highly variable state of medical infrastructure across states — evident in death rates in, say, Gujarat and West Bengal, which are higher than the national average — and the challenge of coping with returning migrant workers who may be carrying the virus from their stays in cramped urban relief camps, state health administrations will be challenged like never before. In that respect, the Union health ministry’s advisory that asymptomatic or mildly ill patients stay in home quarantine appears sensible, but it does not mask the key weakness in India’s Covid-19 fight. Globally, countries that have fought the virus successfully — from South Korea to Germany — have been those that combined lockdowns with robust testing. That remains India’s unaddressed challenge in over 50 days since the national lockdown began. But despite limited capacity, keeping the economy shut for an extended period is not an option for India. Therefore, with relaxation in lockdown guidelines, administration at all levels will need to be prepared. India is now entering the most challenging phase in its fight against Covid-19.