To ease lockdown, what are the options?-THE HINDU-12-04-2020

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With the available evidence, it was believed that physical distancing was the best weapon to combat this little-known virus, transmitted through respiratory droplets. The government announced a shutdown believing that it would stagger the progress of the epidemic, allowing health systems to manage the crisis that would inevitably unfold.

What is the logic behind the extension of the lockdown?

Being an unprecedented situation, there is a stark absence of too many examples from the past of a lockdown of this scale. But there are a number of recommendations as to the period of withdrawal, and pretty much everyone is in agreement over what should be done from a public health standpoint, within that period. As America’s face of epidemic-control, Anthony S. While he was speaking in an American context, the medical science indubitably strikes a chord with nations seeking to safely emerge out of the lockdown. The Spanish flu of 1918 spread across the globe causing similar havoc, though the world was a vastly different place then.

What are the phases to follow?

Individual states can move to phase 2 when they are able to safely diagnose, treat, and isolate COVID-19 cases and their contacts. Caitlin Rivers, one of the authors of the report, explained during a conference with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, that progress towards phase 2 should be capability based, rather than time line based.

Those who are sick will be asked to stay home and seek testing for COVID-19. Multiple experts, in India and abroad, are urging a consultation with local communities on both the hotspot zones and areas that have not had too many cases, before deciding anything further on the lockdown. Nations will need to be prepared to face any new infectious diseases threat, and governments will have to invest in research and development, expansion of public and private health-care infrastructure and workforce.