What should be India’s plan for COVID

I am writing this blog post on the 9th of April and till now things in India are mostly under control thanks to proactive measures taken by the government of India. The number of COVID patients are around 5k and some may argue that this is not a true picture as not much testing is done in India but on the ground things look under control.

Now the big question is what should India do from here? Should it continue the lockdown for next three weeks? Should it relax the lockdown? What about the poorest of the poor? How long they can survive this lockdown?

Here is my five-point plan to tackle the crisis.

1. India should not continue the blanket lockdown. It should apply Bhilwara model to any place where COVID cased are more than X(the X could be 6 as per the current strict lockdown strategy). For the rest of the country, the lockdown should be lifted with social distancing/mandatory masks all sorts of precautionary measures still in place. The moment any hotspot has less than 6 patients open it up and vis-a-versa. The X could be one if we want to go too aggressive in containing it and ten if we want to be slightly lenient based on the number of hot spots to deal with. The main rationale behind this is that we don’t know how long this will last. even if we have 3 months of lockdown and zero cases there could be the second wave of infection which could restart the whole thing again. This could go on till we have either a vaccine or the entire world is COVID free. Needless to say, that focus on building hospitals getting the medical facilities needed or predicted to be needed.
2. India should focus on infra projects, especially the ones in cities. This is the time to speed up the construction pace as most of the congestion areas are virtually traffic-free right now. A sufficient workforce is also available right now. To ensure it is not affected by COVID, 14 days quarantine period could also be applied so that these sites don’t become COVID hotspots.
3. India should focus on ramping up supplies for the medical requirements of the entire world. These requirements could be medicines to PPEs to medical appliances. If we could get a breakthrough in getting a vaccine that will be a killer. The ideas like khadi masks could be a big hit. This is the time to double down and gain a significant pie share there
4. Sooner or later the world would need food. India has the capacity to feed the world. India needs to double down on agriculture production especially by keeping the entire world's needs in mind(not suggesting to not to look at India’s needs. India’s needs are the P0)
5. India should target at least 5 manufacturing sectors where it can ramp up the capacity and start mass production there. The world is looking for an alternate and we should be ready to become one.

Every unpropitious situation also brings opportunities with it. We can either sit on the fence or grab the opportunities with both hands. It all depends on the choices we make.