Editorial: COVID-19 - The problem of consistency

Chennai

More often than not, these reminders have been painful. They are of States highly protective of their borders, of administrations slapping down varying rules relating to access and departure, opening and closing of facilities, and generally behaving as if the COVID-19 situation elsewhere is of no concern of theirs. We have had the Arvind Kejriwal government declaring that Delhi’s hospitals, both public and private, will treat only Delhiites until further orders, a parochial decision that was rightly overruled by the Lieutenant Governor. In the early days of the outbreak, the BJP government in Karnataka denied access to hospitals in Mangaluru for those who needed their services in Kasaragod in Kerala, which is close to the border. As for quarantine rules, they vary from State to State; worse, the length of the quarantine period, which is under constant revision, could depend on your port of origin. Example: those from Delhi and Tamil Nadu need to quarantine for 14 days in Karnataka.

COVID-19 has had a way of making people feel less Indian and more a part of a tier of regions – containment zone, district, the area under lockdown, and State. The larger question of course is – apart from the confusion varying rules create – what this has meant for the plan to put India back on its economic feet. As everyone knows, the economy doesn’t respect borders and any regeneration depends critically on a free movement of goods and labour. As importantly, a sense of economic confidence also depends on the policy that reflects continuity. What needs to be avoided, unless necessary, is frequent chops and changes in the rules. Tamil Nadu’s recent decision to lock down Chennai and its surrounding districts, following a gradual push towards easing, is a case in point. While there is no denying that the incidence of COVID-19 is a serious cause for concern in this region, the reversal will cause serious disruption on the ground.

Businesses that have, metaphorically and otherwise, dusted off the cobwebs and cleaned up their places to resume have now been forced to shut down again. Given the reversal, is this an admission that the first decision to ‘Unlock’ was wise? And then, is there any guarantee how long the next ‘Unlock’ – whenever that is announced – will last? It is very hard to predict the trajectory of a virus as seemingly whimsical as COVID-19, but policies to tackle it must have a sense of both uniformity and consistency. The first is lost with States dancing to their tunes. The second is undermined by frequent shifts and reversals in policies. Neither is good for the economy and livelihoods – in short, for the people of this country.