Unlock 1.0

1st June 2020. We are unlocking from today!

My mind travels to two months back when life was as usual. Great. Cars on the road, work on mind, travelling on agenda.

Then…we started lockdown. The scare of a small invisible virus has put the entire nation within the confines of four walls. Prevention is better than cure. Lockdown. COVID-19 drugs are still in the works. No cure available in months. So, Lockdown 1.0. From 25th March.

Locking has been with the human race for thousands of years. Even though the earliest patent for a lock was granted to an American in 1805, locks were in use in ancient Egypt four thousand years ago. We always needed to lock things up. And this was a complete lockdown. Lockdown of countries.

Four phases of lockdown in India lasted for several days – 21, 19, 14, 14. Looks like runs in four innings in T20 matches in the now-cancelled IPL2020? But those days also mean a 5% contraction of a $ 2.7T economy and 12.2 crore people losing livelihoods. Cynics ask, “why did we need lockdown of 60 days? What if we didn’t!” In my opinion, we lost 5000 lives in the last 60 days; without lockdown, we might have added another zero to the right.

We are starting a new phase – Unlock 1.0 – from today – for 30 days. Relaxation in movements for essentials, shrinking the nightly curfew. Unlock 1.0 after four phases of lockdown is like warranty after four sprints in delivering a Minimum viable product.

But COVID-19 drugs are still in the works. Are we unlocking without the key? Are we breaking the lock? Every life has a story just like every livelihood. Unlocking livelihood is important, so is not breaking lives.
Let’s unlock living safely! Unlock staying safe! Till we have the key!
Happy Unlock 1.0!