Viruses are contagious. They do not spread through the air, they spread from one person to another. So the lockdown was imposed so that the virus doesn’t spread.
The lockdown, obviously can’t be perfect. It can’t be implemented in a way that no one meets anybody else. If someone has been infected, it will slowly spread to the neighbourhood. So the lockdown is only a ‘pause button.’ It cannot get rid of the virus. It is only to stop it spreading to new places, and to slow down the spread in places it already exists.
For getting rid of the virus, all the infected people need to be found and isolated. This is a complicated process. The Government needs to do contact tracing, test people with symptoms etc. Most of all, the Government needs to do random testing because some people are bound to be left out. But random testing needs a lot of test-kits.
How the lockdown can be eased:
There is no way the virus will just suddenly vanish allowing things to go back to normal. The lockdown has to be eased in phases. Each area has to be looked into closely. Then COVID-19 free regions can have local movement. One might think that it is quite alright to have movement from one safe place to another one. But that will not be a good idea unless we can be absolutely sure there are truly no cases. If there suddenly turns out to be cases in one of these regions, they can focus on finding the cases there. But if people from this region with hidden cases have traveled to other places, they will need to look at all of them.
So the opening up needs to be really gradual. First there should be only very short distance travels. Then, as we can be more sure that there are really no new cases, the movement can increase step by step.
Present situation:
Just a short while ago, there was virtually no movement. Cases are still rising dramatically, and most states have not yet opened even intra-district bus services yet. Let alone inter-district or inter-state services.
And yet, suddenly the Central Government has announced that many train and plane services will resume!
These services are for people to travel between cities. Many of these cities are hotspots for the virus. So places which have managed to get rid of it, might suddenly find that they need to start all over again. What’s more, while traveling, people are more closely in contact. So the virus can spread during the journey. Since planes and (some trains) are air-conditioned, even if a single person is infected, the virus can easily spread throughout the plane (and railway carriage). On top of that, the Central Government is saying that people who travel in planes should not be tested and quarantined.
Therefore it is impossible that the situation could have normalised to allow such travel so fast. The reason why the Government is resuming these travels is not because the situation is normalising. It is because they feel they cannot indefinitely suspend these services. It is true that they don’t need to suddenly start so many services at once, but they want to appear to have got everything really well under control. What's more, they are not in favour of taking extra precautionary measures.
If you have an Aarogya Setu app and you are clear, do you want another test? India is conducting around 1 lakh per day…if you do not have any symptoms or did not come in contact with a COVID-19 positive person then what is the use of test? The test result will come in 7 hours…you take the test and wait for the result and then wait for another two hours before the boarding?...If you check several boxes, can give a self declaration…Why will the State want to quarantine you after these facts. It is a new situation, States will get used to it. Within next day or two we will have clarity
—Hardeep Singh Puri, Civil Aviation Minister.
Source: The Hindu
Why do it if it is such a risk?
There is a great communication gap between the Central Government and the State Governments as can be seen. And it is the State Governments who are in charge of the ground level work. All the following things are the State Government’s responsibilities:
- Deciding who to test
- Contact tracing
- Setting up containment zones
- Screening incoming passengers
- Setting up quarantine centres
Secondly there is a vast difference between States in how well they are able to handle the virus. Some states have the infrastructure to do aggressive testing. For example Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have 61 and 52 testing labs respectively (As of 15/05/2020). Whereas Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which are relatively bigger, have only 26 and 7 labs respectively. Another important thing (probably more important) is that some states are communicating with the public. In these states many more people will self report themselves in case they need to be tested. Whereas in other states, the Government needs to do all the tracing itself. Just see how different states handled the Tabligi Jamaat spread.
The better off states have plans. They are slowly easing the lockdown in a safe way. But other states just keep going back-and-forth. They ease the lockdown in some safer places. Then there will be a spike and they will impose it strictly again. And that just keeps going on.
The Central Government has acted based on the fact that some states don’t have a clear picture. States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are are likely to have many unknown cases (due to low testing). Such states need to be careful anyway, so it makes virtually no difference to take extra risks of having plane and train services. But the Central Government has not taken the better-off states into consideration. All the searching and tracing in these states may instantly become of no use. Tamil Nadu for example is testing all returnees who have been stranded elsewhere. There have been positive cases among the people tested. Once these services start, it will be impossible to test every one of them even if the Central Government allows it.
Opposition:
A day after booking opened and tickets were booked, the railways cancelled all trains to and from Maharashtra. The reason given was that the state doesn’t allow inter-district travel. Maharashtra is the financial capital, so the centre is more cooperative. There are many other states which don’t allow inter-district travel, but the railways has not cancelled trains in those states. Tamil Nadu, for instance, does not want plane services to resume. However, like how it happened with the 15 special trains, the centre is just pushing its way through without the states consent.
To what extent is the risk?
We cannot be sure how many infected people might be travelling in these planes/trains. However, Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh have made it mandatory for all air passengers to be tested on arrival. Once the results come, one can look at the details of how many people from these places test positive. That will give us an idea of how many people are being missed out in other states. These details may come on their official websites. Otherwise, one can search the web.
Official websites/social media accounts related to Coronavirus:
Andhra Pradesh:
Chandigarh:
Amit Bansalpro
Commented 25 May, 2020
Yeah it's actually strange - when things were relatively ok in the early days, there was the strictest of lockdown. As the deaths and number of affected have increased, so have things been eased.
Venkatavaradan Vanav
Commented 24 May, 2020
Great