The Lockdown – Broken into bite-sized pieces

The need of the hour to ensure lockdown would be supply chain management to the doorstep. How can one expect a home-maker to stay at home knowing there may not be enough grains in the house to feed her family after five days? How can we expect a head of the family to not step out knowing his aged parents suffering from chronic illness need their daily dose of medicines which they have stocked up for just a week more?

Where income sources are cut, how can one stock up on supplies for a month plus.?

The possible solution would lie in the management of supplies and other essential commodities to the doorstep. This could be implemented if it is broken down into bite-sized pieces at the level of localities, streets etc. If the civic authorities were to ensure that supplies were provided at bags kept at doorsteps then one can motivate and assure citizens to stay indoors.

Requests could be made online or over the telephone and twice or thrice in a day, local delivery agents in protective gear can deposit packets in trays or bags kept outside the house and pick up the payment (if one can’t pay digitally). Intense cooperation at the shop level to ensure each gets a fair chance in sales of their goods should also be worked out.

With respect to medical issues, each hospital should focus on tele-medicine as much as possible to avoid crowds while maintaining the medical assurance they mete to the patients. If they feel safe, secure and listened to, they would not panic and cause additional burden on the medical fraternity by turning up at hospitals and clinics for issues that can be managed long distance. A very strong telemedicine set up needs to be urgently implemented at all hospitals to battle this situation.

With respect to income per house, which if disrupted may cause people to sneak out under many pretexts to ensure their business is not affected, a careful evaluation need to be made to see what could be done especially for genuine cases. What assistance could be provided by the government and how it could be evaluated? Senior advisors in every area could initiate novel methods to ensure business is not affected much including going digital in cases where possible.

The next and most important step is awareness generation without alarming the public. They ought to know the gravity of the situation without panicking. This can be again done at the locality level where digital media can be used effectively by Councillors along with medical specialists. Educate and instill a sense of responsibility in the heart of every citizen. If this is in place, the rumour-mongers would be kept under check as well since authentic information and assurance is available locally.

A word of precaution to the women subject to domestic abuse by their alcoholic addicted husbands. With the lockdown a deprivation to alcohol is inevitable and with it would come out the suppressed ‘demons’ within their personalities. What could be done at the locality level to help such households should also be worked out.

This task would become very manageable if we could address these issues at the ground level. As collaborators in the mission Covid – 19 eradication, we should all remember NOT to criticize the ones working at the frontline, while we all religiously follow the lockdown. They include medical workers, civil servants, cleaners, police, defense and many others who are out on the battlefield. They have families too, they have ailments too but they are out there risking their lives for us. The least we can do is not to demoralize them by expressing our gratitude if not by flamboyant expressions, but by our actions and silent support. Let us encourage them as cheerleaders in this battle.

The lockdown begins. Let us lock down our egos, our bravado and work together to save ourselves from this pandemic. Let us shed religious, political, racial, national differences and hold hands unitedly to tide over this situation. United we shall always stand.