Hello and welcome to The Moving Curve. I’m Rukmini, a data journalist. Every night on this mini-podcast, I consider one question around the novel coronavirus epidemic in India. Tonight I’m asking the question: what could life after the lockdown look like?
Here’s a little about the Chinese health code app I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/china-coronavirus-surveillance.html
Austria will open small businesses first and larger ones and malls afterwards: https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Denmark too wants to lift the lockdown but in a staggered manner to avoid overcrowding public transport: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coranavirus-denmark/juggling-coronavirus-and-economy-denmark-readies-to-ease-lockdown-idUSL8N2BR33S
Italy too is now talking of phase two which involves among other things mask use, social distancing, apps for health checks and surveillance and better local health systems: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3078535/coronavirus-italy-looks-ahead-phase-two-death-toll-slows
Imperial College modelled estimates for the UK: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Singapore, for instance, has been praised these last few weeks for the measures it took to contain the spread including strict contact tracing, social distancing and mask use, but it’s now going to have to go into a month-long lockdown from tomorrow because of a big spike in cases: https://www.livemint.com/news/world/singapore-announces-1-month-lockdown-amid-rising-corona-cases-11585905344421.html
It’s all going to be a bit fluid; even in China, some restrictions that were eased were then brought back after seeing new cases or just nervousness about crowding: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/china-gets-mixed-results-in-its-attempt-to-lift-lockdown
I talked to Yan Cong, a Chinese photographer who is currently in Day 11 of her 14-day solitary hotel quarantine after she-entered Beijing from the US. Here’s an amazing photo she took from the peephole of her room.
That BBQ restaurant is probably not going to be the way Yan dreams of for some time now; she told me that restaurants that are open have to limit the number of people inside and conduct health checks and it won’t be the warm and noisy place she remembers for…well who knows how long.
And that’s the new reality we’re all going to have to wrap our minds around. Thank you for listening. This episode was edited by Anand Krishnamoorthi. Tomorrow — a new question.
