Lockdown has been the single most abrupt disrupting phenomenon in the lives of most people living in dispute free zones of the globe. Prior to this, as an Indian millennial, demonetisation was the thing. But we will not draw any comparisons as it would not be an apple to apple comparison.
Many abrupt unwanted things happen across the globe such as military conflicts and coupes. But what sets lockdown apart, or rather have its own league, is not only the sheer global scale but also the myriad of unknowns. And despite all criticism, it was not only the best possible move but also executed in the most fluid manner possible.
How can I make such bold claim?
Just for clarification, I prefer to be politically neutral
First of all is the nature of the event itself! It created myriad of unknowns and just too many questions with nowhere to look for answers. And when you are left utterly bewildered with your sensory inputs not feeding you any information, what do you do?
Compare this with being hit by a flash bang in a battlefield, you can neither hear nor see – at that point one would wish if the world around froze thus giving the time required to regain functional abilities. Does pausing on an entire country seem more relevant now?
And lockdown was perhaps the only way to buy time!
Open to suggestions in the comments
Businesses have Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) protocols that dictate directions when things go wrong in a particular part. Similarly administrations have Disaster Management Acts or Protocols to tackle unwanted phenomenon in one part. However, the limitation of both is that they rely on proper functioning of the other parts.
For instance, if an airline has an emergency landing, they rely on air traffic control, paramedics, workshop and others; but what if these support services were either struggling with their own functionality or just unavailable. And that was the sheer scale of events!
Fingers do the typing, but not with a paralysed hand!
Open to suggestions for a better analogy
This brings us to Business Continuity Plan (BCP) which gives directions to maintain business critical processes when usual processes are paralysed. But a similar plan would be unrealistic given the efforts and complications involved. To put it in contrast, even a 500 employee company has a BCP of a few hundred pages.
And even if you do decide to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to engage a big4 on such a handbook, the odds of effectiveness are not a hundred percent. First, the level of comprehensiveness and agility inherent to its nature are too high to yield a bulletproof plan, and second, most of the stakeholders will have little or no experience in execution. Ask an army vet about improvising to unknowns and how trainings compare against battlefield experience.
No guidelines, just decisions based on judgement and experience!
Experience was perhaps the most significant difference between 2020 and 2021 lockdowns
And finally, all these protocols need to be executed through an archaic bureaucratic machinery which is already dealing with 99 other problems! So the question still persists: what to do?
The Answer:
Align priorities of stakeholders to make them function towards the same goal while leaving the ‘how?’ to their judgement and experience. And countries that prioritised lives, livelihood, and vaccination have managed to emerge relatively better.
*Disclaimer: Author is not responsible for any unstated inferences or conclusions drawn by the reader!
Savvy Munshi 