An unclear path

Lockdown extension will increase economic uncertainty

The government’s decision to extend the nationwide lockdown by another two weeks is bad enough because it jeopardises the future of millions of enterprises which account for the bulk of the employment. What has made it worse is that the selective easing of commercial activity is unlikely to help restart economic activity in any meaningful way. The idea behind the lockdown was to slow the spread of Covid-19. That has happened, and it is not clear what the country will achieve by another extension. Instead of colour coding districts, containment and tracking by now should have been more focused with