Thinking through Covid (19) response Possible

Transcript:Thinking through Covid (19) response Possible:
Thinking through Covid (19) response Possible implications on society, economy (livelihoods), democracy, environment etc Abraham Samuel (SOPPECOM) Covid dash board Global count (as of 15th May evening) : 4,500,476; Depth count : 304,835 (6.77% of cases) India (as of 15th May evening) : 81970 ; Death: 2700 (3.25% of cases) Predominantly urban areas Congested habitats Poor segments of society Elderly and people with co morbidities Migrants and minorities in many countries (UN call of Covid 19 as a human right crisis) The government response: legal provision? The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 mainly section 2 of the act . Amendment on 22nd April to punish those who attack the health workers The nationwide lockdown was imposed in exercise of the powers given to the union government under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (DMA). The response imposed from above left with no choice for citizens or states Citizens merely as subjects and states left to fend for itself The government response: major issues The response to the crisis made a public health issue more into a law and order and the responsibility of the repressive apparatus of the state (corona warriors, war with corona, salute the police etc) Nothing illustrates this absurdity better than the fact that major notifications and guidelines relating to Covid-19 are being issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and not the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Adopted Chinese model of containment in the face of lack of medical and epidemiological information on the disease, and public health facilities The response for containment Surveillance , isolation (quarantine) and lockdown emerged as a dominant model following ‘Chinese model of Success” not only in India but in many other democratic countries Exceptions are Sweden, Netherlands, Greece and some Scandinavian nations where the state and citizens relation seen as based on trust and as of mutual contract There are some in-betweens like south Korea, Singapore, Taiwan etc The strategy is to reduce the burden on public health systems, buy-in time, problems related to lack of epidemiological understanding or ignorance of the virus behaviour etc- to ‘flatten the curve” a million dollar question! Critique of the containment strategy Many critiques term these mechanisms as an ‘authoritarian biopolitical strategy’ borrowing Foucault’s famous concept of ‘biopolitics and biopower’ ( Jaan hai to Jahan hai) ‘State of exceptions’ to impose restrictions on the freedom and mobility, solidarity building etc (Giorgio Agamben) Following Foucault