Cover Story | Corona Chronicles

Lockdown India Looks Ahead

Open | 03 Apr, 2020

It is hard to see how the lockdown will end on May 3

Delhi, March 30 (Photo: Ashish Sharma)

The pandemic and the lockdown have changed our lives. Covid-19 had claimed more than 47,000 lives by April 2nd, totalling more than 930,000 cases, worldwide. To slow down, and hopefully stall and stop, the spread of the contagion, India went into a 21-day national lockdown, unprecedented in its history, on March 24th. A quarter of humanity is under some form of lockdown. How are India’s 1.3 billion people living with it? Are the steps taken to mitigate its hardships helping? Is the lockdown having its desired effect and preventing Stage 3—community transmission—of the disease? A look at political leadership, the economic cost, the unquantifiable psychological toll, and at the many uncomfortable shades of the Day After.