Should there be a lockdown in Gautam Buddh Nagar? Read what residents have to say
Noida / Greater Noida: 26th April: Amid the sharp rise in Covid cases and fatalities in the Gautam Buddh Nagar district, one conspicuous solution that is in everyone’s mind is – lockdown.
It appears that lockdown did helped slow down the Covid curve last year, this year too, the recent lockdown in Delhi has slightly slowed down the exponentially growing curve. But different people have different opinions and a lot of things have to be taken under consideration when a lockdown is contemplated upon. One major consideration is to what extent will it hit the alredy sinking economy, and also, will it really be helpful to the masses or will it just add to the people’s misery who are alredy suffering due to shortage of beds, oxygen and medicines.
Noida resident Aditi Chatterjee, while disapproving lockdown, said that a lockdown will cause further stress and difficulties for people trying to obtain hospital beds, oxygen and medical supplies and cremation facilities. A lockdown at this critical juncture serves no purpose. Except for making life more difficult for people who are already harassed.
Another resident D.P Singh requested everyone to convince in their neighbourhood to follow a self imposed 5 day lockdown. After that, a self-imposed lockdown of three days of can follow. It will bring down the number of people floating around in the city and reduce possibility of interaction.
Resident Praveen Mahajan approved the idea of self-imposed lockdown, saying that a lockdown by government makes lot of poor people suffer.
Indicating that the district is unlikely to go under a lockdown despite in dire need of the same, Gajanan Mali reminded that PM has said that lockdown is the last resort, so CM and DM will not act in this regard. “Perhaps we are going to add to our woes in view of daily rising cases .. IIT Super Model predictions.”
“Govt needs to act. It is better late than never in imposing strict short lockdown in Gautam Buddh Nagar.”
Noida’s Veteran Brig (retd.) Ashok Hak rightly pointed out that there is an immediate need to break the chain which has not been possible inspite of weekend lockdowns, heavy fines. So a short, say one week lockdown is recommended. Meanwhile, revamp of beds, oxygen, medicine, injections must continue on war footing.
Going beyond short lockdown, Rajiv Kumar, Adviser, DDRWA suggested a one-month complete lockdown accompanied by extensive vaccination.
“It’s a Reality, that we will have to impose the lockdown and their is no other way to control, let’s see after how many more deaths,” he said.
Sati Kumar, a dancer, too conformed to the idea of lockdown, saying that a lockdown needs to be imposed until government get enough stock of ICU beds, oxygen and other life saving drugs.
Prof. A Unnikrishnan said that people are bound to break Covid norms, so government machinery should be prepared to handle that. They can not wash off their hands by stating that we have given instructions and guidelines. Law breakers are everywhere in the world including developed countries. If all countries would behave in a dignified way, there would be no need of armed forces.
