Mind your distance

Man is a social animal. Social isolation causes depression. Human interaction can never be replaced with machine interaction. Facebook can never substitute face to face. Virtual is not real. Human touch cannot to be compared with touch screen. And so on and so forth. These are facts undeniable. Having lived with them for a lifetime, the present situation of social distancing, social avoidance and social isolation is posing huge challenges to mental, physical and business interactions. Such facts, in the last four to six weeks for the citizens of this world, have become a reality that is now hitting hard. Locked down in their rooms and apartments people are divided over the desire to go out and mingle, and the fear of the human connect causing a serious health threat.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is warning constantly. In the beginning of the pandemic they warned that coronavirus could kill 20 million people if lockdown and other measures were not taken by governments. Now the WHO is warning that there is a hunger pandemic looming that may kill 30 million people. Without the lockdown the virus kills and with the lockdown economic crashes and hunger kills. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Governments all over the world have announced lockdowns to keep the virus out but are beset with the challenge of keeping the economy running. As factories shut down, restaurants and shopping malls remain closed, the money outflow is in trillions to safeguard health and unemployment with hardly any revenue coming in. This is posing serious challenges of sustainability. That is why even in the most developed and rich nations the debate to lock down or unlock has started despite the virus showing little signs of losing its steam. These choices are choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea. Nevertheless, that is what leaders in crisis do- take calculated risks that may or may not pay off.

As they say the biggest risk is not to take a risk. Those who want to continue without lockdowns saw how quickly the virus spread and those who want to continue with lockdowns are seeing how quickly economies are crumbling. Who would have ever imagined that the price of oil will dip to zero and then negative $ 36. Saving lives is a priority but saving livelihoods in the long run also becomes a priority especially in poor countries where governments cannot provide food and living to masses during lockdowns. The answer lies in finding a trade-off of retaining lockdown yet opening economic activity to the extent where the loss of livelihood becomes more than the cost of the lives. Seems a simple equation but is very complicated. As is with any completely unresearched and unstudied phenomenon, solutions will be at best trial and error. Experience shows lockdowns are not sustainable in the long run and some form of experimentation is inevitable. The trade-off between lives and livelihood is called Smart Lockdowns. How "Smart" or "Stupid" it will be will depend on the following 4 considerations:

1. The Stage of the Curve - A century of Pandemic forgetfulness and unpreparedness has made predictions a toss of the coin. However, some raw sense is coming out of this pandemic madness. Early stages require early action. Lockdowns should start even when the numbers are in two digits to limit its spread incrementally. Countries who started late let the virus multiply exponentially overwhelming health capacity and resources.

2. The Stage of the Country Development - One size doesn't fit all. This pandemic has no confirmed recipes for any region. Within South East Asia, China and South Korea have tried different options successfully. Within Europe, what has 'succeeded' in Sweden has been disastrous in the UK. Best practice manual of the developed world may become the worst practice manual of the under developed world. Poorer countries have the virus of poverty and hunger that will kill more people perhaps than the coronavirus as recently expressed by the WHO.

El Salvador, Venezuela and India are three examples where lockdowns were emulated from the west without thinking about the differences in poverty levels. In El Salvador, crowds of people swarmed the capital begging for aid more than a week after the lockdown was announced. In Venezuela people went on riots on streets. Researchers in India report that hundreds of deaths were caused by the lockdown. These included people who died of starvation and migrants fleeing the cities for rural areas collapsing in exhaustion and dying in stampede.

3. The Public Trust and Cooperation - Ultimately, the success of sustainable lockdowns or social distancing depends on how public understands and is willing to cooperate with measures imposed on their living and livelihood by the government. In high trust countries like Sweden the lockdown has been much more relaxed as public is very conscious of government SOPs and believes in the government's attempt to safeguard their interest. Other places like the Philippines the government gave shoot to kill orders to those not adhering to lockdown guidelines.

4. The Capacity to analyze and adapt the strategy - Coronavirus is a science. Public health emergencies involve mass data study. Transmission rates, public behavior studies, health response analysis are all "curves" that affect the Corona Curve. A constant eye on them to collate and relate to policy decisions is key to changing strategy proactively and effectively. Germany is an example of how they have decided that death rates are the ones they need to control and that is why they have the best critical care response in Europe. Japan on the other hand did not look beyond the flattened curve and now is experiencing a resurgence in the infection rate.

There are three lessons to learn from this corona game of brain and nerves. Firstly, look at the better models in the world but localize according to the ground reality. Secondly, identify potential red hotspots through data and study and create effective lockdowns in red zones while keeping the other areas in orange and green allowing essential activity to resume with an eye on SOP adherence. Thirdly, get public informed, involved and engaged in protecting senior citizens of the population and in feeding and helping the poor and underprivileged. The vaccine may take some time but the need to use selective, adjustable and socially acceptable strategy is immediate. In the long game of an unprepared pandemic it is the political will plus the public will combined that "will" lead us out of this crisis.

(The writer can be reached at [email protected])