Lockdown not the solution

With the threat of the potentially deadly Omicron variant of the coronavirus looming in the horizon there were concerns about whether the government will impose another lockdown. Thankfully in a timely move, Health Minister Zahid Maleque stated that the government has no immediate plans for a Covid-induced lockdown in the country. He reassured the people that “Necessary steps are being taken to check the spread of Omicron”. At the same time he also expressed his concerns about people crowding different tourist spots, including Cox’s Bazar, without wearing masks. “People aren’t maintaining any Covid safety protocol, raising the risk of Covid infections” he said. We are all for ensuring the strictest safety standards. People should be made aware of the fact that that while there has been a dramatic decline in infection rates, the pandemic is not over by any means. There is always the risk of another wave if people continue to show a lackadaisical attitude regarding adopting safety measures. However, imposing lockdowns at regular intervals have not proven to be the perfect solution.

Bangladesh has been highly successful in containing the spread of the pandemic. Proving doomsday prophecies by many a naysayer wrong Bangladesh has managed to keep both infection and fatality rates comparatively low. Vaccination drives have been successfully organised According to the health minister seven crore people have received the first dose and 4.5 crore people have been fully vaccinated so far in Bangladesh. All hospitals now have adequate oxygen support. The country is well prepared to face any Covid related health crisis.

We have stressed in this column that lockdowns are not a good fit for a country like Bangladesh. In most of the developed countries, stay-at-home orders have been a cornerstone of the coronavirus response. However, experience shows that taking a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t necessarily fit very well with the needs of the developing countries. Bangladesh has limited capacity to support locked-down population and consequently lockdowns can result in widespread suffering. In dense urban settings where there’s limited sanitation, staying home doesn’t even prevent the virus from spreading. Many countries in the developing world are at risk of getting the worst of both worlds — mass poverty from shutdowns and mass illness and deaths from the continued spread of the virus.  It is becoming increasingly clear that many of the tools and measures deployed by high-income countries against the virus are most probably not ideal in a country like Bangladesh.

One of the biggest challenges Bangladesh regarding lockdowns is that a significant part of the labour force work in the informal sector, and a great number of them are migrant workers-migrating from rural areas to urban areas temporarily just for earning opportunity. Most of them are daily wage earners and a strict lockdown plays a very adverse effect on their livelihood. We have observed that during the lockdowns a large number of people left the urban centres as they did not have any work in hand. The social capital developed in villages-which is almost missing in the urban areas-motivates them to go back to their origin when a rainy day comes in as they believe that in villages, they will get support from friends and family members. Sadly, many of the people who left the cities carried the virus with them. Making matters worse, poor states lack administrative capacity to communicate their rules and enforce them.

The economic cost of lockdown is enormous. A study conducted by the Institute of Health Economics of Dhaka University finds that economic losses are around three thousand crores for each day of shut-down. Covid-19 is not the only problem this country is facing. We have hunger, an inadequate healthcare system, poor living conditions, lack of literacy, economic vulnerability, so on and so forth.

We should strive to strike the perfect balance regarding saving lives and livelihoods. Evidence has shown that saving lives involves protecting the economy. Considering all the negative impacts, lockdown should be avoided unless it is really a dire situation.