After having 3200+ cases, if Government of Nepal is planning to open the Countrywide Lockdown or ease the lockdown. Then there was no point of imposing the entire country in Lockdown when the cases was below 5.
This is definitely a huge judgemental error which has severely affected large portion of Nepalese population. Huge loss faced by Aviation industry, jobs cut off, tourism sector has been collapsed, hotel industry to manufacturing & retail businesses faced downfall and many more sectors are adversely affected through this lockdown. While food and agro based industry has observed huge rise in their revenue. With very minimum benefit but extremely huge disadvantage to national economy, lockdown does not seem to be a better option by keeping in view about the stats of increase in COVID19 cases in Nepal during ineffective and poorly implemented lockdown. As of now, it will take years to get overcome from the damage done through this decision. Now the major questions are,
Who will take the responsibility of this damage done through lockdown?
If lockdown was imposed, then was it implemented seriously?
Was lockdown the only best solution against COVID19?
If we analyse the few of the top countries who did not impose lockdown, then we may come into a better conclusion regarding the decision.
Sweden: Sweden has been one of those countries who did not impose the nationwide lockdown with a population of 10.09 million, has 41,883 cases including total deaths of 4562. Reports has claimed that businesses and schools has not been closed yet while the citizens are asked not to come out of the homes until it is urgent, maintain social distancing and avoid using public transport. Restrictions are stricter for senior citizens. Due to no-lockdown strategy by Sweden’s Government, economy of the country grew by 0.4% in the first quarter compared to previous year, while the economy of Eurozone countries contracted by more than 3%.
South Korea: At the early stage of Coronavirus Outbreak. South Korea was one of the worst-hit country in the world. But it has been one of those few countries, which has been able to keep the situation under control without even imposing a nationwide lockdown strategy. South Korea is a country with 51.27 million population and has 11,668 cases including total death of 273. The main strategy of South Korea was testing aggressively, tracing the contacts and isolating the suspects. Till now it has conducted 990,960 tests in total. Within a week of 1st case in South Korea, government has ordered the factories to produce large number of testing kits. As a result of which, within 2 weeks, country has been able to produce 100,000 testing kits per day and utilizing all the produced kits very efficiently. The major reason behind the successful control from spread of Coronavirus was identifying the suspects and isolating them in a quick time.
“Initially people were worried about the outbreak, but then they started to see the unbelievable numbers in Europe and elsewhere, and they started to realize that the South Korean government had actually done a really good job. It had handled the crisis really well,” stated by Al Arabiya’s reporter in South Korea, Ashwaq AlAtoli.
The concerns must not be more upon ‘Nepal do not have enough resources.’ Rather emphasis must be on utilizing the available resources and foreign aid smartly. If the lockdown was not imposed, then it was obvious that the economic activity within the country would have operated somehow smoothly and expenses upon feeding the citizens would have been minimized and can be used in aggressive testing and isolating the suspects. If a government desire, even a country with no experts can produce testing kits by hiring experts and installing advance technology required for the production process. Purchasing 75,000 Rapid Diagnostic Kits from China worth $600,000, receiving 3,000 kits from Germany and 30,000 test kits from India as a gift will not be enough for a country comprising 30 million population. It is better for a country to procure experts and resources to produce sufficient kits and other equipment that a Corona Warrior required to battle against this tiny enemy.
These are my analysis and view. Now it is up-to you how you analyse this situation. Do you still believe imposing a lockdown was a better option? Your views are welcomed in the Comment section.
