#21 Lockdown ko lock kar diya jaaye?
We must find a way back from the lockdown chakravyuh
This newsletter is really a weekly public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?
And then, there were two. A full one more than one. Starting this week, my friend Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley will also be writing on this platform. Together, we hope to expand the repertoire of public policy topics in this thought-letter. Given that all of you are locked up, we will provide public policy food for thought twice a week. Raghu is starting with an essay on a topic that’s on everyone’s mind: what happens after the lockdown? Do write back to us with your thoughts.
- Pranay
Look, designing a good policy in ordinary times is tough enough. To do so when things are in a whirl must be a nightmare. The usual advice for policymakers to heed in such situations should be:
The first option may not be the best overall option: Choose an option at the beginning without precluding others; use trial and error to keep testing for other choices while exercising your first option fully
Don’t paint yourself into a corner: While communicating or implementing the first option, demonstrate a degree of ambiguity and, even hesitation so that you can walk back from it as things evolve
The policy response to COVID-19 crisis in India should follow this approach. There’s no silver bullet; we have to balance public health and economic costs on an ongoing basis.
The end of lockdown?
With that in mind, here’s a question for you. If you shut the entire country down at about 500 COVID-19 cases, at what case count will you lift the shutdown?
The kind of obvious answer is when the case count goes below 500 and there are zero new cases daily. Sounds like a good objective function to target. So, when do you reach there? Let’s draw out the likely scenario.
We are doubling the case count every 6-7 days. That’s a slower clip than other countries. If we were at 500 cases (X) on the day of the shutdown (March 25), at the current rate of growth we might end up at about 5000 cases (10X) on April 15 (Day 21). So, what do you do on April 15? If you have spent the past 21 days enforcing a shutdown at lower case counts, you have no choice but to continue with the shutdown when the case count is 10X. It’s difficult to make 5000 look better than 500. Even in this post-truth world.
So, on April 15, you extend it by another 21 days. Assume the growth slows down to half the rate of the previous period. You might be at 17,500 cases on May 6. Maybe the shutdown worked well and we peak at 17,500 cases (and, about 300 deaths). Bear in mind, this peak count is way lower than any projections done by multiple studies on India. All good, so far? Do you lift the shutdown on May 6 at the peak case count? The answer is no. You wait for the objective function to be fulfilled – case count below 500 and zero new cases daily. In an optimistic case where the rate of fall is almost twice as fast as the rate of growth, you might get to this stage by June 3. The more realistic case might drag this till the end of June.
So, going by the rhetoric and everything the state has enforced so far, June 3, is the earliest when it can declare a return to normalcy. That’s about a 10-week pause in the economy. On a conservative basis, that should mean an 8-10 per cent fall in total output. The cascading economic impact, especially on the poor and the vulnerable, would have already been terrible. Now picture most of India on June 3 looking back at these 10 weeks. I don’t know about you, but I think barring the most paranoid among us, we would look at the economic distress around us and ask if there wasn’t another way to manage this. Maybe such questions would come up even before June 3 as the less than explosive growth in case count put into question the merit of a complete shutdown.
Changing the narrative
So, what should have been a good policy design on March 24?
The decision to enforce a nationwide lockdown on March 25 might have been correct given the benefits of flattening the curve early in the cycle. However, the formulation should have provided for enough room to change the narrative as things unfolded. There should have been other options that should have been tried out on a limited basis during this time including the mass provision of masks, digital contact tracing, rapid testing and targeted shutdown of specific clusters or restrictions on movement of the most vulnerable sections. Importantly, there should have been discussion on what possible scenarios could emerge on April 15 and their likely implications. 5000 cases by April 15 might have been deemed good news in this approach. Come April 15, you could then plan on loosening restrictions in a calibrated manner and increase your efforts on other choices beyond shutdown that you would have experimented with already. The economy could then be back on a slow burn.
It isn’t too late. This notion of trying out other choices and communicating scenarios should be put in place now. The visibility to likely glide paths is better than complete uncertainty for people. It helps them make informed choices. Maybe, the poor migrants wouldn’t then be forced to make extreme choices like taking the long walk back to their villages. Or, the clamour for a huge fiscal stimulus that we can ill afford at this moment might reduce. Lastly, the anxiety among people to step out and the stress of being locked up at home could be controlled.
There’s still enough time to walk back the path of complete shutdown as the only option. The narrative needs to change today to include the likely best-case and worst-case scenarios on April 15 and the potential other options apart from shutdown that might be effective after April 15. These need to be discussed and socialised now. The social norms including all the choice mentioned already that should govern a partial lifting of the restrictions need to be discussed and finalised. The experience around the world has shown there’s no single solution that fits all situations. Each country must have its own decision rubric based on its social and economic matrix. A $2000 per capita economy will have to act differently from a $60,000 per capita economy. The policy from here on must include options, trade-offs and clear communication about scenarios that might unfold and the policy reaction to each of them. This ability to be open-ended and ambiguous would lead to a more optimal outcome.
Bold and decisive leadership in times of uncertainty must include the ability to accept not knowing all the answers, adopting a trial-and-error based approach and communicating possible future scenarios with sincerity. Our COVID-19 response policy and its communication need to get back on this track.
HomeWork
Reading and listening recommendations on public policy matters
Ruchir Sharma makes a similar argument here.
Ed Yong has a really, really long story on the endgame in The Atlantic
Tom Friedman on the complete bungling by Trump administration
That’s the mid-week update then. If you like this newsletter, read, share, and subscribe.