Covid-19, lockdown & the world after the virus

Only 1% of epidemic on now, says Swedish expert

A conversation between Rahul Gandhi and global experts has explored the possibility of the coronavirus crisis leading to a new world order and recurring bouts of pandemics, while questioning the desirability of harsh lockdowns.

The Congress on Wednesday released videos of conversations Rahul has had with Swedish infectious disease expert Johan Giesecke, who was chief scientist at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and Ashish Jha, professor of global health at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the

Harvard Global Health Institute. Jha was recently appointed dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University.

Giesecke staunchly opposes lockdowns, arguing Sweden hasn’t suffered any more than those European countries that imposed complete lockdowns.

Jha sees some merit in lockdowns, which he says can be used to plan the administrative responses to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

During the conversations, Rahul came out against total lockdowns, preferring a dynamic and nuanced approach to ensure the economy was not ruined.

“I think you will soon create more harm than good with a severe lockdown, both from economic and humanitarian perspectives,” Giesecke said.

“I think you should have a soft lockdown. As soft as possible.”

Giesecke wondered whether any country had thought of an exit plan while announcing a lockdown, and described Covid-19 as a very mild disease that causes no serious harm to more than 90 per cent of the population.

“This is a disease that is spreading across the globe like a wildfire and almost everyone in the world will be infected. But it is a very mild disease. Ninety-nine per cent of the people infected will have very little symptoms or no symptoms at all. So what we are seeing now is 1 per cent of the epidemic. The real epidemic is going on,” he said.

“The way we have done it in Sweden is that the main thing is to protect the old and the frail. So what we have done is that we have not completely shut down the country. Many workplaces are still open. We don’t have restrictions. You can go outside and meet other people outside. Better than in your home.”

He issued a warning: “I think for India you will ruin your economy very quickly if you have a severe lockdown. It is better to skip the lockdown, take care of the old and the frail, and let the other people have the infection. Most people will not even be sick. They will not even notice they have it.”

Giesecke asked Rahul: “How are you talking about this balance between disease and economy?”

“I’m sceptical of a full lockdown myself,” the Congress leader said. “I do think that one has to move to a partial lockdown. A full lockdown is damaging and the damage increases exponentially. The sooner you get out of the lockdown, the better it is.”

Giesecke agreed, saying: “You may even create more deaths by a severe lockdown than the disease will do.”

Rahul referred to the varying perspectives and tensions between the Centre and the states that have slowed the opening up.

Jha said: “The reason to do the lockdown is that you are trying to slow down the spread of the virus. Left unchecked, the virus will grow exponentially. But of course it has very substantial economic repercussions.”

He added: “A lockdown buys you time, but a lockdown is not a goal unto itself. You want to use that time to prepare a really fabulous testing-tracing-isolation infrastructure. You want to use that time to communicate with people.”

Jha felt the world was “entering an age of pandemics”.

“This is not the last large global pandemic you and I are going to see in the next 20 years,” he said.

Asked whether some structural changes had triggered this, he replied: “We got lucky that in 2009, the H1N1 swine flu ended up being not so bad, though it was a global pandemic. Due to globalisation, a virus that gets started somewhere spreads globally very quick.

“Second is (the) big environmental changes. All of this economic growth that you see in China — and (which) India and many other places have had — which has been wonderful for lifting people out of poverty, has also meant... deforestation, encroachment into areas where there are more animals.”

He added: “And most pandemics, most diseases that come to humans, (the) new ones are jumps from animals to humans. So this virus has existed in bats but there was a small change, probably in the genome, and all of a sudden it became suitable for human hosts. I think climate change is going to make many of these things worse. So, as we get through this one, we have to ask ourselves how we are going to better prepare for the next one.”

When Jha asked Rahul about the responses in India, the Congress leader said the states that are working in a decentralised manner would manage the crisis better.

“Some states are doing better than other states because of their nature, their design, their political system. I hope that this disease will bring people together and bring them to the realisation that you can’t fight this as different religions, or different communities, different castes, different genders. I think in some ways there is a potential opportunity here. There is an opportunity that in fighting this disease we are able to start a conversation, we are able to understand that everybody is required to work together,” Rahul said.

“The virus is operating at two levels — at healthcare level and also attacking the globalised structure. If you look at the places that are vulnerable, they are all nerve centres of globalisation. And if you look at the people who are vulnerable, they are all people who have been damaged by the food chain. Heart disease, particular types of diets, particular types of behaviour, all come from globalisation and the virus is attacking them.

“I’m convinced that you are going to have a new world after this virus. For example, I think it is going to reshape Europe. Many people won’t like what I say… but I think Europe will have a real difficulty staying together. I think the balance of power between the US and China will change. I think we are entering… people say that 9/11 was a new chapter; this is a new book.”

Jha concurred. “I agree with that. Five years from now, life will look nothing like what it did five years ago. And certainly a lot of traditional models in our head of who is sort of the advanced economy and who is not...,” he said.

“It has been very interesting for me being in the United States and saying that the countries that have responded the best (are) South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the countries that have responded the worst (are) Italy, Spain, United States and the United Kingdom. Welcome to the new world order. This is not how we had always envisioned things. It will have long-term repercussions and I’m not sure what those are.”