Lockdowns and why one size doesn't fit all

Much of the COVID-19 press coverage has focussed on the difference between lockdown strategies in various countries.  Less attention has been paid to whether lockdowns are the appropriate dominant strategy.

Lockdowns in the global South are manageable for the rich and even the middle class.  Many in Delhi, for example, are also barricading the so-called 'colonies', areas where the wealthier citizens live, to keep people out (at least barricading them more than they already do).

But lockdowns are not workable for the majority of the urban population where there are often many people sharing a room, where access to a tap may involve a walk to the shared standpipe, where there is not enough money even to stock up on supplies for a week, let alone think about buying internet bandwidth or a Netflix subscription.  In such an environment a lockdown is neither sustainable nor just.

Enforcing lockdowns in such a context becomes war on the poor.

Read this account from South Africa by a journalist visiting Masiphumelele, a township to the South of Cape Town.

Or this one looking at the dense low-income settlements (often called 'slums') in Mumbai, India.

Dharavi, Mumbai