A complete lockdown, is it fair to the common man? Yes, by all means. After a series of trial and error methods, the government finally ordered a complete lockdown from Tuesday midnight. Ironically, the announcement comes on a day we otherwise would have been voting in the Zilla Panchayat elections, if Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had his way.
The government was facing a lot of flak over its pathetic handling of such a sensitive situation. The casual approach was evident ever since the first danger signs appeared in other States. The focus on Zilla elections was so dominant that the looming threat of Covid-19 was shunted to the back-burner on the premise that Goa didn’t have any positive cases.
Thankfully, the Goa government belatedly realized the seriousness of the issue, much after everything it tried failed miserably. The rush and chaos that was witnessed during the partial relaxation of essential services on Tuesday was indicative of the fact that such soft measures, intended to give relief to the people, are indeed going to backfire in the long run. The piecemeal initiatives so far have been ineffective, and people continued to remain vulnerable. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Janata Curfew, which was touted as a big success in Goa, failed to bring substantial relief. And which is why a complete lockdown makes complete sense.
The lockdown must be taken in the right spirit because it is in the entire interest of the people of Goa. Such drastic measures are going to hurt the common man, more especially their day-to-day living. But such extreme steps are needed for a strategic fight against Covid-19.
A Dharwad man who travelled via Goa and the Dubai-based Bengaluru woman who made a transit halt in Goa, both of whom tested positive for coronavirus, gave Goa the shivers. Leave alone the lack of a testing facility, we neither have any contingency plans in place nor the infrastructure to battle the situation if it goes out of control. In such a scenario, the best way forward is to enforce a complete lockdown to contain any transmissions.
It’s time those mocking curfews understand the gravity of the situation. If police have thrashed motorists out in the open for breaking the voluntary curfew, it also means the machinery is seized of the issue and wants public safety.
It’s time that the people of Goa unequivocally support this lockdown and shun differences. All arguments against it must go in lockdown mode. Debates over running out of groceries and home consumables are no longer relevant when innocent lives are at stake. The State government will be failing in its responsibilities if it doesn’t exhaust all options to salvage the situation, especially when other States have taken similar initiatives to contain the spread of the virus. The people of Goa must rise to the occasion and bear the daily challenges with a positive frame of mind.
