Coronavirus: A Framework to Decide Between National and Local Lockdown

Abstract

This article offers a framework to help decide between national and local lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The approach is to find the optimum level of lockdown that balances the benefits (avoided ailments) of lockdown against its cost (arising from reduced economic output). With the path of the pathogen being unknown, India may have to consider a rolling lockdown: that is, open the economy which would probably risk a flare up of the virus due to increased human interaction, and before the virus hits a threshold shut down the economy to control the virus, and then open it again. This balancing act between opening and closing the economy is probably necessary till a remedy is found to deal with the virus. Finally, timely and reliable testing is the most preferred way because it can do two things at once: it can lower the transmission of ailments and make local lockdown far more viable by identifying critical areas and hotspots. Extensive testing would generate granular data of affected areas, which can limit application of rolling lockdown to the affected districts only. With the availability of granular data, the choice between national and local lockdown would become choice between district (say) and tehsil lockdown. The analysis below is framed in terms of national and local lockdown although it applies with respect to district and tehsil lockdown.