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Saving Lives and Livelihoods

Amidst a Once-in-a-Century Crisis CHAPTER

आपदद प्ाणरक्ा दि धम्मसय प्थमाङ् कु रः ।
Saving a life that is in jeopardy is the origin of dharma
– Mahabharata (Shanti parva), Chapter 13, Shloka 598

The Covid-19 pandemic engendered a once-in-a-century global crisis in 2020 – a unique
recession where 90 per cent of countries are expected to experience a contraction in GdP
per capita. Faced with unprecedented uncertainty at the onset of the pandemic, india
focused on saving lives and livelihoods by its willingness to take short-term pain for long-
term gain. india’s response stemmed from the humane principle advocated eloquently in
the Mahabharata that “Saving a life that is in jeopardy is the origin of dharma.” Therefore,
india recognised that while GdP growth will recover from the temporary shock caused
by the pandemic, human lives that are lost cannot be brought back. The response drew on
epidemiological and economic research, especially those pertaining to the Spanish Flu,
which highlighted that an early, intense lockdown provided a win-win strategy to save
lives, and preserve livelihoods via economic recovery in the medium to long-term. The
strategy was also motivated by the Nobel-Prize winning research in Hansen & Sargent
(2001) that recommends a policy focused on minimising losses in a worst case scenario
when uncertainty is very high. Faced with an unprecedented pandemic and the resultant
uncertainty, loss of scores of human lives captured thus the worst-case scenario.
This strategy was also tailored to india’s unique vulnerabilities to the pandemic. First, as the
pace of spread of a pandemic depends upon network effects, a huge population inherently
enables a higher pace of spread. Second, as the pandemic spreads via human contact, high
population density, especially at the bottom of the pyramid, innately aids the spread of the
pandemic at its onset. Third, although the average age is low, india’s vulnerable elderly
population, in absolute numbers, exceeds significantly that of other countries. Finally, an
overburdened health infrastructure exposed the country to a humongous supply-demand
mismatch that could have severely exacerbated fatalities. in fact, assessments of crores
of cases and several thousands of deaths by several international institutes in March and
April possibly reflected the concerns stemming from such vulnerabilities.
To implement its strategy, india imposed the most stringent lockdown at the very onset of
the pandemic. This enabled flattening of the pandemic curve and, thereby, provided the
necessary time to ramp up the health and testing infrastructure. Faced with enormous