Covid-19: Why India needs to be under Lockdown?

Team Udayavani, Mar 26, 2020, 2:03 PM IST

PM Narendra Modi declared a three-week nationwide lockdown. Modi said that, it was the only way of breaking the Covid-19 infection cycle.

In his address on March 19, Modi told people to stay inside their homes for 21 days, warning that if they didn’t do so the country would be set back 21 years and families would be destroyed.

Here we tell you why lockdown is very important in a country like India

As we all know India is a densely packed  country, both its public and private spaces are crowded. Also, the large number of people from the weaker sections of the society makes it very vulnerable for the easy spread of such an easily transmissible disease.

According to sources, A typical Indian household has between 4.5 to 5 people per family. Some 40% of Indian families are non-nuclear or joint families. Most of these families will have one person above 60 years of age, one below 18 and two others aged somewhere in between.

In that case, one infected person in a family means the chance of widespread infection is high. In a situation like this, locking up the entire family to save the elderly who are the most vulnerable possibly is the best solution.

Adding to this, most of the middle-class family live in a small house and if one person is put under home quarantine, he will not have a room for himself to be isolated in and the chances of spread becomes higher.

Not to forget, 90% of the people in India use public transport to commute and buses and railways are always overcrowded. Hence, shutting down the railways is the only way to prevent infection.

Anyway, in cases of such lockdowns, India needs to have proper planning and mainly ensure that the supply lines deliver essentials to the people.