A few weeks ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation, he urged the states not to impose lockdown. The PM requested everyone to keep lockdown as their last resort. But few Indian states have already announced a lockdown. Karnataka especially had no other option left.

Most of the medical experts and health officials are now suggesting a total lockdown as the only option. It doesn’t have to be for a long time but a week-long lockdown at least would be preferable.

Recently, US epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci has shared something that will help bring down the cases in India. He said that the country should go for a few weeks of lockdown. As the cases are increasing every day, there are chances that this situation might worsen. To get this under immediate control, it would be best that India goes for a lockdown. Fauci said that this is an immediate measure to get the situation under control. A temporary lockdown can be done which would last for a week.

Also Read: Few Weeks' Lockdown in India Can Break Chain of COVID: Anthony Fauci

The concern here is that what effect will it have on the poor. They are the ones who suffered the most with the sudden lockdown announcement last year. The migrant workers had nowhere to go and were left stranded. This move brought a lot of criticism to Narendra Modi and the central government. A similar lockdown this year would leave the poor in a disastrous situation once again. If a decision is taken in the context of a lockdown, then it has to be planned well. But looking at what happened last year, the BJP government is now skeptical.

An infectious disease specialist and global health expert at Stanford Medicine in California, Catherine Blish explained about the lockdown. She said that a total lockdown is equated with an ‘economic disaster.’ The economy suffers in this situation. Whereas no lockdown would mean ‘public health disaster.’ But the situation in India is something that equates to both health and economic disaster. Every day there are more than 3 lakh testing positive for Covid19, this is bad for both the economy and public health.

India is suffering economically as not many are interested in investing in the country. As of this quarter, the Indian rupee is the worst-performing currency of Asia. There was a decline in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex Index.