The same ‘shock and awe’ element was evident in his abrupt decision to enforce a national lockdown as part of the fight against Covid-19. And it is turning out to be double flop. Not only has it failed to prevent the spread of the contagion, despite the best efforts of his administration to portray a different picture, it has also heaped untold miseries on the people and the country’s economy.

A panel of public health experts, which reviewed the impact of national lockdown, ironically at the behest of the prime minister himself, though only after the draconian move has been in force for weeks rather than before its announcement, has exposed the fault lines in the government’s approach, particularly Modi’s diktat ‘stay wherever you are’.

The ‘stay frozen’ policy has led to the biggest human tragedy of post-Partition, which had millions of migrant workers stranded in different parts of the country without food or proper care, forcing them to embark on what has come to be known as Long March, taking a heavy toll of lives and livelihoods.

And this is one of the most damning part of the task force’s conclusions. Had the migrant workers been allowed to go home at the beginning of the epidemic when the disease spread was very low, the current situation could have been avoided, it asserts. The returning migrants are now taking infection to each and every corner of the country; mostly to rural and semi-urban areas, in districts with relatively weak public health systems, it noted.

The task force, constituted by the Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) and Indian Association of Epidemiologists, and including two members of a key government-constituted advisory committee to contain the pandemic, questions both the assumptions that prompted the lockdown and the timing of the extreme step.

Bringing further embarrassment to the government, the task force criticises the reliance on bureaucrats rather than the experts in framing follow-up actions. It observes, citing the limited information available in the public domain, that the government was primarily advised by clinicians and academic epidemiologists with limited field training and skills.

“Policy makers apparently relied overwhelmingly on general administrative bureaucrats. The engagement with expert technocrats in the areas of epidemiology, public health, preventive medicine and social scientists was limited,” says the task force in a report submitted to the prime minister’s office.

“India is paying a heavy price, both in terms of humanitarian crisis and disease spread. The incoherent and often rapidly shifting strategies and policies, especially at the national level, are more a reflection of ‘afterthought’ and ‘catching up’ phenomenon on part of the policy makers rather than a well thought cogent strategy with an epidemiologic basis,” the report asserts.

While noting that India’s nationwide lockdown has been one of the most stringent, the caseload has increased exponentially through this phase. In this respect, Rahul Gandhi’s tweet, reproducing graphs on the impact of India’s lockdown, comparing it to that of Germany, Spain, Italy and UK, has come like rubbing salt on the wound, drawing a particularly virulent response from BJP supporters and members of the ruling party’s social media army.

The task force has also questioned the assumptions of the model that guided the Modi government’s response to the pandemic. It says that the draconian lockdown is presumably in response to a modelling exercise from an influential institution which presented a ‘worst‐case simulation’. The model had come up with an estimated 2.2 million deaths globally. Subsequent events have proved that the predictions of this model were way off the mark.

“Had the Government of India consulted epidemiologists who had better grasp of disease transmission dynamics compared to modellers, it would have perhaps been better served,” it says in a rather wry tone.

The panel says it is unrealistic to expect that the covid pandemic can be eliminated at this stage, given that community transmission is already well-established across large sections or sub-populations in the country. No vaccine or effective treatment is currently available or seems to be available in near future, though there are a few promising candidates.

While acknowledging that the lockdown has blunted the rapid progress of the infection and the nation accepted near-total disruption of all facets of daily life, the task force says the expected benefit of the stringent nationwide lockdown was to spread out the disease over an extended period of time to flatten the curve and effectively plan and manage so that the healthcare delivery system is not overwhelmed.

This seems to have been achieved albeit after 4th lockdown with extraordinary inconvenience and disruption of the economy and life of the general public, it says. The case fatality rate in India has been relatively on the lower side, and mostly limited to the high risk groups, such as elderly population and patients with pre-existing co-morbidities.
(IPA Service)