Time for a Rethink

As on 30th April India has reported 34,863 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections and 1,154 COVID related deaths.

Let's look at some reported numbers from other countries too
America :
The USA - 33,840 infections & 509 deaths on mar 22
Canada - 33,383 infection & 1,470 deaths on Apr 18

Europe
The UK - 33,718 cases & 3,747 deaths on Apr 2
Italy - 31,506 cases & 2,503 deaths on Mar 17
France - 32,964 cases & 1,995 deaths on Mar 27
Germany - 32,991 cases & 159 deaths on Mar 24

Asia (all as of today by Apr 30)
Indonesia - 10,118 cases & 792 deaths
Pakistan - 16,817 cases & 385 deaths
Bangladesh - 7,667 cases & 168 deaths
Malaysia - 6002 cases & 102 deaths

India again - 34,863 cases & 1,154 deaths
(All data source - worldometers.info)

Most Asian economies are tiny countries and most European and American countries reacted late. So one to one comparison who did how well may not make much sense. However, there is unmistakable direction in the data. More than one month of lock down has resulted only in some incremental gains till now for India and most Asian countries seem to be doing similarly better. So if there is something in our geography that leads to virus being less virulent then the gains achieved from lock down are further limited.

A report by COV-IND-19 Study Group dated 22/3 had predicted "In the absence of any intervention,India can expect to see an exponential growth...predicted cumulative cases on 31/3 is 379,on 15/4 is 4836 & 15/5 is 58643." Even with intervention, there were almost 6,000 cases on April 9 itself - however data seems to be broadly following the same contours even now. - going by current rate we can end up reaching close to 60000 by 15th May.

On the other hand - the Corona crisis will take a very heavy toll on the Economy which was already on a downward spiral for last one year before the Corona crisis erupted.

As the attached graphic shows, almost across the board all known experts have been brutally slashing their GDP growth estimates. The more recent the estimate the more decimated it is. Also I reckon that many of them have not yet been able to assess and incorporate the effect of almost a total freeze on the economy due to lock down.

Just to get a feel of impact let me quote a recent study " just a 25% fall in incomes could send as many as 354 million Indians below the poverty line". The ILO has already given an estimate that 400 million people in the country could slip into poverty. These are mind boggling numbers and we may end up squandering the gains of last two decades. Our demographic dividend was anyways fast being squandered in half baked, slow and lazy economic reforms.

There is some talk of opening up lock down in the cities that fall in the "green zone". Just remember that the cities in the green zone accounts for just 20% of the Indian economy and it will be a case of too little - hopefully not too late.

In fact the process of reigniting the economy is also expected to be slow and longish process because it is only yesterday that the government has woken up to the ordeal of migrant workers who have been walking in thousands for thousands of kms to reach back their homes. The government now will offer the special trains to reach back home. Bringing them back to their workplace and making them start earning a living will be a tough process as the experience of L&T at IIT Hyderabad has shown.

Is it time to accept that Lock down as a strategy has had limited upside and may actually turn out to be costlier than the toll it will have on lives due to economic misery and related socio-psychological impact. Between the dilemmatic choice of lives and livelihood - choosing lives is emotionally more preferable and politically more popular - but there are times when doing the right thing in the long run should be more important than winning elections or forming governments.