Tackling Corona In India: Why The Sledgehammer Approach Is Doomed To Fail

The corona challenge will likely be with us for a year or more, until we find a cure or a vaccine and it may strike again, after remaining dormant for a while. Thus, it is more urgent than ever to find policy responses that can be sustained and don’t end up leaving India worse off overall.

- Bibek Debroy and Bjorn Lomborg

Clearly, Covid-19 can have a very large negative impact on India. According to the influential models from Imperial College, if nothing was done in India, corona could end up killing almost 6 million people. Models are based on assumptions. Even if precise numbers are not that high, casualties, not just deaths, can be serious.

To reduce the impact of corona, we have to reduce the transmission of the disease. We have two broad policies of social distancing – a moderate and a strict one. The moderate reduction would be akin to the policy chosen by Sweden – reducing the average person’s social interactions about 40%. People are asked to work and study from home if possible, but most still go to work and school. Interactions outside of work and school would, however, be dramatically curtailed. The more draconian strict reduction would be a reduction of social interaction by threequarters, more akin to lockdown policies in Italy, and would also end work and school.