Slackened ‘lockdown’ for Eid does not bode well

It was a Catch-22 situation for the government and no doubt the decisionmakers are in a quandary at this moment. With Eid ul Azha about a week away, the government took the decision to ease the "lockdown", if one can call the present state a lockdown at all (considering the number of people and cars on the streets, especially in Dhaka city), in the assumption that people will go home for Eid no matter what. The decision to do so overrode the health directorate's grim warnings just a day before, regarding the deteriorating Covid situation. We cannot help but wonder why warnings by health experts have not been heeded and decisions taken accordingly.

The government has also decided to run private transport, trains and launches for the holidays. Again, conditions have been laid down under which the transport services should operate, but how will these conditions be enforced with thousands of travellers? What different measures will be taken from last Eid, during which health guidelines were totally flouted, leading to infection surges? While the railway authorities may be able to enforce the strict safety measures, as we have seen on previous occasions, the same, we fear, cannot be said of the launch owners and operators or private transport service. In the past, not only was the half-capacity rule disregarded, the 60 percent increase in fare was also charged from the public.

While enacting safety measures is the relatively easier aspect, what the administration must prepare seriously for is the consequence of the "eased lockdown", which in effect will be "no lockdown", given the state of adherence to the rules that we have witnessed during the present so-called lockdown. More than one lakh people have been infected even during this lockdown, and experts fear that the figure may treble after the end of the period of relaxed lockdown. A two-week "strict lockdown" will be on from July 23 6:00am till August 5 midnight. Unfortunately, the virus, now deadlier than ever, will not wait for festivals and holidays to be over and will find an ideal environment to spread amongst the thousands of people travelling around the country.

Health service and healthcare facilities are under severe duress as it is. The Delta variant has spread to most districts and will continue to spread. The spike portends an ominous future. Unfortunately, there is still a gross lack of awareness among people regarding how deadly and contagious the virus is, which must be addressed with more diligence. There should not be any ambiguity, moreover, regarding the term "lockdown"—a lockdown must always be strict if it is to be effective. Planning should be underway to pull up all resources to absorb the pressure that the system is like to encounter by the end of this month. And it must be done on a war footing.