Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday held a dialogue with global public healthcare expert Dr Ashish Jha and epidemiologist, Professor Johan Geisecke of the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, on the Covid-19 crisis.
“The reason for a lockdown is that you are trying to stop the spread of the virus. Humanity has never seen this virus. This means we are all susceptible, said professor Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
“You can slow down the virus through a lockdown, but it has great economic repercussions. But authorities should utilise that time to prepare their testing infrastructure. It’s about planning everything for the time that’s coming,” he added.
“Now, when you open the economy, you have to give people confidence. Economy works on confidence,” said professor Jha.
Gandhi, who had recently met migrant labourers moving across the country to get to their hometowns during lockdown, shared his thoughts saying the biggest fear they had was uncertainty. Professor Jha agreed and said the government needs to have a strategy for exiting the lockdown.
The conversation is part of a series of dialogues that Gandhi is holding with global and Indian thought leaders to discuss the Covid-19 crisis and its consequences on the Indian economy.
Earlier this month, he spoke to Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee who said that India should consider a big stimulus and give cash in hand to create demand and prevent chains of bankruptcies to save the economy hit hard by the nationwide coronavirus lockdown.
“Spending is easiest way to revive economy. It will have stimulus effect,” Banerjee had said.
On April 30, Gandhi was in dialogue with former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan who suggested that the government transfer cash directly to the poor and supply food through the public distribution system (PDS) to as many people as possible to help them tide over the impact of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak and the consequent 40-day lockdown, estimating the effort will cost Rs 65,000 crore.
The money is small given that India’s gross domestic product is to the tune of about Rs 200 lakh crore, he had said.
