\n<\/p>\n
\nPart-I: \n\u201cSome will say \nInitial \nThe outbreak of the Covid-19 from the Wuhan district \nHealth \nAlthough there was very little public information \nIn the meanwhile, several state governments also \nNot only the Modi Government used the lockdowns to \nGiven the size of its population, the country had to \nWe have never in the past witnessed a massive seamless \nMode \nThe initial advisories issued by the Modi Government \nIt was at this juncture that pursuant to the decisions \nEnd \n(1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Report \n(2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Letter \n(3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Letter \n(4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Order <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Part-I: Modi 2.0 Government\u2019s Swift Actions to Contain & Combat Covid-19 \u201cSome will say this discussion of the Avian Flu is an overreaction.\u00a0 Some may say, \u201cDid we cry wolf?\u201d\u00a0 The reality is if the H5N1 virus does not trigger pandemic flu, there will be another virus that will\u201d is what the United States Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35571,15894,33529,203516],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7067400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-modified","tag-regulatory","tag-responses","tag-stimuli"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nModi 2.0 Government\u2019s Swift Actions to Contain & Combat Covid-19
\nthis discussion of the Avian Flu is an overreaction.\u00a0 <\/span>Some may say, \u201cDid we cry wolf?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>The reality is if the H5N1 virus does not
\ntrigger pandemic flu, there will be another virus that will<\/i>\u201d is what the
\nUnited States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt
\npredicted in November 2005.\u00a0 <\/span>The United
\nStates had rightly acknowledged that such a pandemic will test the critical
\ninfrastructure of both the United States and the world. Several policies and
\nprotocols were developed in the United States to ensure the resilience of
\ncritical infrastructure in the face of a pandemic.\u00a0 <\/span>However, notwithstanding all such plans,
\nprotocols and the preparations made nearly for two decades, when the Covid-19
\ntested the preparedness of United States\u2019 critical infrastructure, it showed
\nchinks in its armory and displayed dysfunctional abnormalities of a virtually
\ncollapsing health care critical infrastructure in the country.\u00a0 <\/span>As on June 2, 2020, given its population of
\n330.85 millions, the United States had contracted\u00a0 <\/span>1,865,459\u00a0
\n<\/span>Covid-19 cases and have had a casualty of 1,07,314, while India with a much
\nmore staggering population of 1.30 billions for the same period had only 2
\nlakhs Covid-19 cases and a casualty of 5,598.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The striking contrast in which India had so far witnessed a very low
\ncasualty figure suggests either of the two things, viz<\/i>. the no-nonsense ingenuity with which the Modi Government had
\nhandled the pandemic or the natural immunity of Indians to outwit the virus.\u00a0 <\/span>Let us briefly chronicle what the Modi 2.0
\nGovernment did in containing and combating the Covid-19 in our country.
\nGlobal Responses to Covid-19:
\nof China was initially never taken seriously by any country in the globe during
\nthe initial days of January 2020 given the abject lack of any meaningful
\ninformation from China on the contagious nature of the disease pushing the
\nworld community into complacency.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>China informed the World Health Organisation (\u201cWHO\u201d)
\nof the outbreak on January 3, 2020.\u00a0 <\/span>However,
\nthe fact remains that China did not fully share the genome of the Covid-19
\nvirus, nor did it alert the world on the human to human transmissions. There
\nwere initial gaffes in the way WHO approached and handled the issue.\u00a0 <\/span>Initially, on January 5 & 14, 2020, WHO
\nmaintained that there was no evidence of human to human transmission of
\nCovid-19 or health care workers being affected in China, despite Taiwan
\nalerting WHO by its email dated December 31, 2019 that there were news of such
\nhappenings in China.\u00a0 <\/span>WHO delayed the
\ndeclaration of a global pandemic and declared it to be so only on January 30,
\n2020 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, by which time the
\nCovid-19 virus had spread from China to other countries. After undertaking a
\nvisit to China in February 2020, WHO praised the disease containment and
\nprevention measures taken by China(1).\u00a0 <\/span><\/b>
\n& Travel Advisories and Initial Containment in India<\/span><\/u><\/b>:
\navailable on the nature of Covid-19 and mode of its transmission, the Modi
\nGovernment did not shy away from initiating a slew of measures to prepare the
\ncountry against its onslaught.\u00a0 <\/span>The
\nMinistry of Finance, Government of India recognized the spread of Covid-19 as a
\nforce majeure <\/i>condition and issued a notification on February 19, 2020 in
\nrelation the procurement of goods by the Government of India.\u00a0 <\/span>On March 5, 2020, the Ministry of Health and
\nFamily Welfare of the Government of India (\u201cMHFW\u201d) issued an advisory to the
\nState Governments to reduce mass gatherings with a view to prevent the spread
\nof Covid-19.\u00a0 <\/span>On March 11, 2020, the High
\nLevel Group of Ministers decided to implement visa restrictions and put in
\nplace travel advisories against visiting certain countries and in the wake of
\nthe same, on the same date, the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of
\nHome Affairs (\u201cMHA\u201d) issued visa restrictions to foreigners visiting India and
\nintroduced 14 days quarantine of passengers arriving from or having visited
\ncountries of China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, France, Spain and Germany and on
\nthe same day, MHFW had also issued travel advisory against Indians visiting
\nsuch countries.\u00a0 <\/span>Again on March 16, the MHFW
\nissued the advisory on social distancing to prevent spreading of Covid-19 and
\nthereafter on March 19, MHFW banned the arrival of any scheduled international
\nflights to India. \u00a0<\/span>The Indian Railways
\ninitially discontinued its train services on March 22, 2020 which was from time
\nto time extended further.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In the
\nmeanwhile, on March 13, 16 and 20 of 2020, the MHFW had issued various
\nguidelines and directives to the Chief Secretaries of the States and Union
\nTerritories to implement social distancing and quarantine advisories to contain
\nthe spread of Covid-19.
\nannounced their own covid-19 infection prevention and control regulations under
\nthe Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Public Health Act of the concerned
\nstates like the one introduced by Tamil Nadu on March 15, 2020.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Pursuant thereto, the Government of Tamil
\nNadu announced its own lockdown on March 23, 2020 under the Epidemic Diseases
\nAct, 1897.\u00a0 <\/span>Following a televised address
\nto the nation by Modi, the country went in for a \u2018Janata Curfew\u2019 between 7 am
\nto 9 pm on March 22, 2020.\u00a0 <\/span>On March 24,
\nthe MHA invoked the provisions of the Disaster Management Act directing all
\nauthorities in the Central Government, State and Union Territories Governments
\nto strictly implement a host of Covid-19 prevention and control measures,
\nincluding the first lockdown in the country, which was followed by another
\ndirective to the States and Union Territories issued on April 2, to strictly
\nimplement the penal provisions under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Indian
\nPenal Code against anyone found violating the lockdown orders.\u00a0 <\/span>This phase marked the Lockdown 1.0.\u00a0 <\/span>Soon, the Lockdown 2.0, 3.0. 4.0 and lastly
\nthe Lockdown 5.0 versions followed with several relaxations in activities.
\nprevent and contain the spread of the Covid-19, but, effectively utilized the
\nopportunity to spruce up and augment the health care infrastructure in the
\ncountry.\u00a0 <\/span>Front line Covid-19 warriors
\nwere mobilized and sensitized from the doctors, nurses and other health care
\ncommunity, besides, the police, municipal and sanitation workers.\u00a0 <\/span>Hospitals and testing facilities and kits
\nwere augmented and revamped.\u00a0 <\/span>The country
\nclamped down on the export of essential Covid-19 drugs, PPE, ventilators,
\ngloves and masks so as to build up adequate buffer stock when India had to face
\nthe surge of Covid-19 cases.\u00a0 <\/span>It also took
\nsteps to protect the frontline covid-19 warriors against social discrimination
\nand attacks.\u00a0 <\/span>Hoarding and profiteering
\nin the sale of masks, sanitizers and other drugs related to Covid-19 was also
\nsignificantly curbed by invoking the Essential Commodities Act.\u00a0 <\/span>India also supplied essential medicines to
\n125 countries as a gesture of solidarity.\u00a0
\n<\/span>
\nunleash quick and successive steps to put in place surveillance at points of
\nentry into the country, evacuation of Indian nationals stranded overseas,
\nmassive community surveillance through robust disease surveillance network and
\ncontract tracing, strengthening of health care sector, capacity building of
\nover two million frontline human resources, risk communication and community
\ninvolvement, requisitioning public and private spaces for quarantine
\nfacilities, ramping up testing facility and providing essential supplies.\u00a0 <\/span>
\ncoordination and almost daily release of advisories, actions, relaxations,
\nconcessions and relief measures by various ministries, departments of the
\nCentral Government and the regulators, courts and tribunals in our country,
\nsome of which salient aspects will be appropriately addressed in the successive
\nposts.\u00a0 <\/span>However, to set the tone, we will
\ncommence with understanding how the Modi Government utilized the statutory
\npowers to weave and enforce a web of Covid-19 prevention and control
\nregulations in a more federal manner.
\nof Exercise of Statutory Powers by Modi:
\nwere premised on the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the
\nIndian Penal Code, 1860 and the Criminal Procedure Code exhorting the States to
\nimplement the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act to prevent the emergence
\nof an epidemic from Covid-19(2)<\/b>.\u00a0 <\/span>Subsequently, the Central Government called
\nupon the States & Union Territories to invoke and implement the powers
\nvested on to them under the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, the
\nDisaster Management Act, 2005 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Criminal
\nProcedure Code, to give effect to the advisories of the Central Government to
\ncombat Covid-19(3)<\/b>.\u00a0 <\/span>Up to this stage, the Modi Government had
\nrequested the States & Union Territories to implement the provisions of the
\nabove legislations to handle the situation on the ground.\u00a0 <\/span>In reality, on a national scale, there were
\nseveral disparities and uneven implementation of the advisories leading to
\nnon-uniform compliance levels.\u00a0 <\/span>This
\ncalled for a centre-driven and controlled statutory regime to combat Covid-19.
\ntaken at the High Level Group of Central Ministers meeting held on March 24,
\n2020, the MHA invoked the powers vested under the Disaster Management Act, 2005
\nto strictly direct the ministries\/departments under the Central Government and
\nthe States\/Union Territories governments to strictly implement the lockdown
\nguidelines issued by it(4)<\/b>.\u00a0 <\/span>All subsequent lockdown orders have also been
\nissued by the Central Government under the provisions of the Disaster
\nManagement Act.\u00a0 <\/span>This is because the
\npowers of the Central Government and the National Disaster Management Authority
\nunder the Disaster Management Act are very extensive and has overriding effect
\non other laws.\u00a0 <\/span>The directives issued by
\nthe Central Government under this Act will bind all authorities in the Union
\nGovernment, the State & Union Territories and the State Disaster Management
\nAuthorities.\u00a0 <\/span>This is why the Modi
\nGovernment had effectively exercised the powers under this Act to contain the
\nCovid-19 pandemic in our country.
\nNotes:
\nof the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease, 2019 [Covid-19] dated
\n16-24 February 2020.
\nNo.DO.Z 28015\/19\/2020-EMR dated March 13, 2020 issued by the Secretary,
\nMinistry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India to the Chief
\nSecretaries of States and Union Territories.
\nNo.DO.Z 28015\/01\/2020-EMR(Pt) dated March 20, 2020 issued by the Secretary,
\nMinistry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India to the Chief
\nSecretaries of States and Union Territories.
\nNo.40-3\/2020-DM-I(A) dated March 24, 2020 issued by the Home Secretary, MHA.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>