Popular misconceptions about government orders in Covid19 management

Morning newspaper brought an interesting news. Anmol Ambani (son of famous businessman Anil Ambani) has lashed out at government’s restrictions related to partial “lockdown” in order to contain the spread of the virus.

His statement as contained in his tweet can be read below.

Source: IE, Rediff

While we know that he is not alone in thinking like this, we can certainly spot many common fallacies in this opinion.

First, he thinks that there is a “conspiracy” by the government and big businessmen who are transferring wealth from the poor towards themselves. But the fact is that the governments and the big businesses (except a few) were the biggest victims of the Covid and related Lockdown restrictions. Many big banks failed and many companies filed for bankruptcy. Only a few businesses which ran into essential services were able to jump back and progress after the lockdown restrictions were relaxed. So, we should know that everyone has suffered during the pandemic in some way or the other.

This tendency to see “conspiracy” in everything that the government does is a known trait and often part of the “Left leaning” agenda. Women should hate men, people should hate governments, workers should hate industrialists, this is a known trend whenever a politically motivated agenda is pushed upon people. Anmol Ambani, although an adult, should watch what kind of media he is exposing himself to, since his opinions are giving away a Left leaning bias.  

Now, coming to his point about professional Sports and Elections being allowed even during the pandemic. First, Sports and Movies are non-essential services which were totally banned for quite some time during the crisis but later allowed to resume, in order to sustain the families of workers whose lives depended on the sports and movie industries. So, removing the restrictions in these areas were done as part of a plan and we remember that movie theaters were the last to open, only after most other forms of businesses were allowed to operate more freely. Elections, on the other hand, come under essential work, since democracy will choke and cause widespread anarchy if elections and usual transfer of power are stopped due to pandemic.

The reason why government has to resort to Lockdowns which impact the masses and not the chosen few like big Businessmen or Politicians is simple: common people do not have the access to that kind of care and treatment as the rich businessmen and politicians have and if things go out of hand, public health facilities will be out of capacity and there will be a complete laps of governance, control and order. Allowing the pandemic to spread is a recipe of disaster which can even lead to “civil war” and people uprising and hence it is very important to “break the chain” and stop the pandemic from spreading beyond a point. And alas, vaccine production capacities are limited and the only way to contain the spread, is through tactical Lockdowns. I support micro-area lockdowns instead of a generic Lockdown all across the country, as we had witnessed last year at the beginning of the pandemic.

Let us hope that the government’s efforts to control the virus spread succeed and people do not look for conspiracies and push political agendas even at the time of a crisis.

- Rahul Tiwary