Congress leader Rahul Gandhi interacted with Harvard University professor Ashish Jha and Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke as part of his series of video conversations with thought leaders on the Covid-19 crisis and its consequences on the Indian economy. In their separate interactions with Gandhi, Jha said the lockdown has slowed down the virus spread while Giesecke insisted India will ruin its economy if the severe restrictions continue. The two underlined the pandemic was unlikely to go away soon and called for aggressive testing to contain it.
Jha, who heads the Harvard Global Health Institute, said the world will not be free of the problem until 2021. “The reason to do the lockdown is that you are trying to slow down the spread of the virus. It is a 12-18 month problem and the world will not be free of this till 2021,” Jha said during the interaction, the video of which was released on Wednesday.
Giesecke, who believes lockdowns are of no use and eventually most people will get the virus, said India should have a soft lockdown as more deaths will occur due to severe restrictions than the disease. “...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.”
But if there is a lockdown, Giesecke, a professor emeritus at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute and an infectious disease clinician, said, relaxing it has to be step-wise. “You wait 2-3 weeks and see what happens. If the disease spreads, take one step back and try another restriction. ...it will take months to really ease out the lockdown completely. But you must bring one restriction at a time and see what happens.”
{{/usCountry}}But if there is a lockdown, Giesecke, a professor emeritus at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute and an infectious disease clinician, said, relaxing it has to be step-wise. “You wait 2-3 weeks and see what happens. If the disease spreads, take one step back and try another restriction. ...it will take months to really ease out the lockdown completely. But you must bring one restriction at a time and see what happens.”
{{/usCountry}}Jha called for the need to create a certain level of confidence while opening up the economy, saying if people are scared, they will not engage in economic activity. He expressed confidence that a vaccine for the disease will be available in a year. “Three vaccines from America, China and Oxford are showing promising results and maybe one of them or all turn out to be effective...”
Gandhi, who has held similar interactions with former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee, said there will be a new world after the pandemic and the balance of power between China and the US will change. “Like 9/11 was a new chapter, this [Covid-19] is a new book,” Gandhi said when Jha asked him how will the virus change the society in two years. “I hope this disease will bring people together and bring them to the realisation that you cannot fight this disease as different religions, or different communities, different castes, different genders.”
Gandhi said there is a potential opportunity in fighting the disease. “We are able to start a conversation and understand that everybody is required to fight this disease and we are able to work together to get out of this.”
Jha said the world is entering an “age of pandemics” and added there has been an increasing frequency of these outbreaks over the last century. “This one [Covid-19] is the worst in 100 years. I am confident that this is not the last large global pandemic... in the next 20 years.”
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad separately hit out at Gandhi and accused him of trying to weaken the country’s resolve to fight the challenge. Ravi added Gandhi’s campaign is based on “falsehood, deliberate twisting of facts and misinterpretation”. He added if anyone has better solutions to offer, the government is willing to look into them.