PIB Director: ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to the prime ministers’ first press conference on subjects related to Covid19. Before I proceed, a few housekeeping rules. First of all, thank you for those who have chosen to join the audio and video bridge, and also the live studio audience. Secondly, thank you for the attendees here, we are happy that you are practicing social distancing.
The prime minister will read out his statement after which he will take questions. Since we have limited time, only ten questions can be answered and these were on first-come first-serve basis. In the next few conferences we will give an opportunity to everyone. For those on the bridge, you will be on mute and the moderator will unmute you – that will be the cue for you to speak. Thank you for your cooperation.
Mr Prime Minister?
PM: Thank you everyone for joining this press call.
I would like to start my statement by thanking all the frontline staff of various government and non-government organizations fighting against Covid19. Notably, our airport customs and security, doctors, paramedical staff, railway staff, road transport staff… you are all doing a great job. Thank you, on behalf of every citizen.
As Mr Director said, we are short of time and have to wrap up in sixty minutes. Hence we will focus only on three issues. We will catch up on the other topics in the forthcoming conferences.
The statement is an output of the entire team which includes the scientific advisors, the state CMs and the entire cabinet. Whatever good that will come out of these actions is to their credit. I bear personal responsibility for all failures.
Thinking Seven Days Ahead
Before I get on to the three topics, I will quickly update you on how we are functioning. As Prime Minister, my team and I will only focus on planning and actioning for seven days ahead. We won’t be thinking of anything that is immediately required. That is best left for the Chief Ministers and most of them are doing a good job of the managing the situation on the ground. Everything that I say or do will be based on what is required at least seven days from now. We have data scientists and modelers on the team who are working at trying to predict outcomes and that is the basis on which we will work.
The three items we speak of today are one, hospitalization and hospital preparedness, two, state of the pandemic and three, transportation and logistics.
Hospitalization
As you know, we announced that all hospitals will be placed under state administration. Central hospitals like AIIMS, JIPMER, Tata Hospital, Railway Hospitals and others are already under central administration, so that will continue. All private hospitals in the specific states have been put under the health department of that particular state.
As I speak, administrators, under the advice of ICMR and our panel of scientists, are going through present and future registrations, patient status and expected admissions, and are in the process of freeing up beds. We have freed up the following numbers:
- Critical care beds: 898
- Intensive care beds: 5602
- General and ward beds: 22892
We will be adding around 100 more beds in critical care. We will be adding around 1000 more in intensive and double the bed capacity in general.
Clearly, this is woefully short of what the situation may require. We also have to cater to non Covid19 requirements. So we are looking at augmenting the general and ward capacity. One of the possibilities is to transform the quarantine facilities vacated in the next few days. We are looking at all other options too.
Unfortunately, these beds, especially critical care, are not evenly distributed. We are aware of this, and we will come back to this issue during the course of this conference.
We have issued orders for all hospital dealing with Covid19 to follow the triage process.
Do you know what a triage process is?
Okay, look it up! We will strictly follow this process to ensure that we optimize medical care. There will be no discrimination – anyone whether rich, poor, Hindu, Muslim, Uppercaste, Lowercaste, tribal, skin tone, film star… we will be very strictly following the triage process. The decision to admit a patient will be solely based on the state of the patient.
PB Director: No interruptions please. Questions will be allowed.
Which brings me to the second topic. The state of the pandemic.
The State of the Pandemic
Today we have crossed the 500 infections threshold. It is not good. We seem to be following the US trajectory, which is not good.
We have seen evidence of community transmission of this virus.
PB Director: Silence please. Sir, please continue.
The cases are few. But significant that they are there.
As we have seen from other countries, this was inevitable. Many of us are still thinking “Stopping the Corona Virus.” The time has come to accept that all we can realistically do is to “Slow down the Corona Virus.”
Stopping it is no longer an option.
PB Director: Silence please. Sir, please continue.
Our discussion and decisions today are on that basis. I would like everyone in this country to start thinking and practicing long term alteration of habits. I mentioned this in my address on March 22. Lockdowns are good for the time being. But these are not enough. The cost of lockdowns are high, and I am not just talking of business and government. Millions of people live hand-to-mouth in this country, too many of us. We need to think of them before we pursue further lockdowns. We can sustain, at best, till the end of this week. Let us come to terms that the virus is not going to go back abroad at the end of this week. Having said that, we are not in a position to open everything up.
With this thought in mind, I will move on to the third topic, transportation and logistics.
Transportation and Logistics
I talked earlier about the inadequacy and uneven distribution of beds and healthcare. Now let us look at a scenario where rapid transmission has necessitated more lockdown, or at least partial lockdowns.
Local distribution of food and essentials, our experts have told us, will last at worst 3 days and at best 12 days. Now that states have enforced varied amounts of exits and entries, the whole distribution model even for essentials has been upended. There is substantial amount of disruption in all sectors of commerce that will take weeks to unravel. But for now, let us look at essentials.
Even here, we do not have even distribution. For example, if Mumbai was cut off completely from the rest of the world, it can sustain for 12 days, approximately, before food and essentials run out. Or even NCR or Delhi. But not so in, for example, Trivandrum district. It will at best be three to five days. Of course, all these are modeled assumptions on data we have, and god forbid, we don’t want to test this in real life. So other people may model it differently and say that figure is wrong. But that is not the point.
The point is we have to restart food and essential distribution very quickly and we have figured we cannot go through the normal distribution channels. We have to eliminate bottlenecks – for both avoiding unnecessary population contact and speed.
Can we avoid large markets, particularly for agricultural produce?
Can we avoid seafood markets? Same goes with livestock as well.
We haven’t reached a fully scalable model yet, but it is important for me to bring this up at this early juncture. As we speak, my team is having intensive discussions all around the board. Many startups are involved. The large ecommerce companies are on board, as well as our food corporation, and state civil supplies corporations. We have at least 200 people working on this as we speak under the supervision of the central transport ministry. Through this press conference, I want to appeal to youngsters, particularly those with two-wheelers, to be ready for volunteering in the next few days. If you can read and write and ride short and long distances on bikes, and have a smartphone, please be ready. You will no doubt get compensated and have training, health insurance and safety equipment.
Friends, lockdown means food and essentials do not travel the last mile. We have to have a healthy population with access to nutritious food, and this cannot wait. Otherwise Covid19 is going to induce a complex battle for survival for our vulnerable population.
With this, let me end my statement. I will take questions now.
Questions And Answers
PIB Director: Mr Rajagopal, Telegraph. You have been unmuted.
Rajagopal: Sir, editor for The Telegraph. The CM of West Bengal has requested complete cessation of flights, trains and road transport to West Bengal, and similarly other states have demanded the same as well. Would like to know a) status, because they have said you haven’t got back to them and b) is this something that you have factored in as well? What are your views?
PM: Thank you, sir.
Yes, we have had several discussions with several CMs. It is a bit of a cat and mouse game! But unequivocally, I support the steps they have taken to lock down their states. It is a step we have taken too, under the Epidemics Act – as you are aware, we are not letting any scheduled passenger flight from any other country touch down on Indian soil.
You are also aware that we have stopped Indian Railways as well. We have supported the states’ call, and even taken actions which can be expected from us.
But let us examine this issue. We have roughly around 60,000 passengers a day coming to India. Whoever could cancel the travel has canceled anyway. As an aside, at this point we have accommodated around 700-odd students via our missions.
Compare this with our interstate traffic. We are talking of millions, including families and we are talking of goods – a lot of food and essentials. Any person can tell you that you can’t sustain it beyond a point.
Also another perspective. If your state is stopping 10,000 people from coming across the border, it does not mean it is stopping the corona virus from coming to the state. It only means that you are buying some time. It is very important to know that you are just buying time. Eventually that person will get unwell and infect others, but he is definitely coming back home to West Bengal.
We have to stop thinking that a Corona Virus breakout in Patna will not affect you in Kolkata. If you close the borders, it only means that it will affect you at some later point in time. You have to start thinking of what you are doing with the time you gain when you slow down the virus.
How can you use that time? Can you scale up your hospitals? Can you scale up intensive care? Not by much. I appeal to CMs and their teams to start thinking of a scenario where the virus is indeed coming, but later, and you use that time creatively – probably start communicating widely about treating Covid19 if you see symptoms, start training your local healthcare volunteers, build up a team, communicate symptoms, see how they can treat themselves, ensure no fake treatment and messages… so on.
Till a vaccine is not possible, we have to do all this. Eventually a large portion of population will be affected.
I hope I have answered your question.
PIB Director: Arnab, you are next. You are unmuted.
Arnab Goswami: ISN’T THIS A MASSIVE FAILURE ON YOUR PART? YOU NOW HAVE COMMUNITY TRANSIMISSION, THIS IS TOTAL, ABYSMAL FAILURE! YOU HAVE TOTALLY FAILED IN YOUR JOB!
PIB Director: Arnab, tone, please.
Arnab Goswami: THE NATION WANTS TO KNOW. WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP THE COMMUNITY SPREAD? WHY CAN’T WE FOLLOW THE CHINA MODEL? ARE YOU AFRA….
[Arnab Goswami has left the meeting]
PIB Director: Isaac Chotiner, you are on.
Isaac Chotiner: Isaac Chotiner for the New Yorker, sir, I am dialing in from New York.
PM: Thank you, Mr Chotiner.
Chotiner: There were reports that many state governments have released undertrials from prisons. Have you taken, or planning to take any similar step in Kashmir?
PM: Thank you for the question, Mr Chotiner. Yes, we have released all political prisoners unconditionally. We have also released all undertrials and those not serving sentences for serious crimes.
I take this opportunity to apologise for the actions of my predecessor in Kashmir. We have a long way to go to heal wounds there.
Chotiner: Thank you, sir. No further questions.
PIB Director: Rubika Liyaqat.
Rubika Liyaqat: Sir, any comments on Kanika Kapoor?
PM: Who?
Rubika Liyaqat: Sir, the actress charged with violat…
[Rubika Liyaqat has left the meeting]
PIB Director: The Hindustan Times team, you are on.
HT: Sir, any comment on false information spread through Whatsapp, and any action you are undertaking especially on Whatsapp?
PM: This is a topic I will discuss at length in the next press conference, but just to update: our Information and Broadcasting ministry is in touch with all major social media networks for a concerted fight for positive information on Covid19. This is anyway being dealt at the global level. We have asked them to encourage localized content. We need a lot of information out there.
Thank you for asking this question. Just one more thing here, since we are talking of communication. We have to come around to the fact that we are going to be overburdened, we have a shortage of beds, we have inefficiencies everywhere. But the good thing – if there is any good thing with Covid19 – is that we have seen a huge majority of patients don’t develop problems that need hospitalization. We can use communication strategies to reach out to the overall public. But you have to caution that it doesn’t mean it can be taken lightly either. We should work together.
Thank you.
PIB Director: Makepeace Stilthou? Yes, you are here. Go ahead.
Makepeace Stilthou: Thank you for the statement today. However, I would like to know specific updates for the north east, besides Assam. What precautions is the central government taking to ensure remote and inaccessible regions do not get infected, especially since they may well be in your “uneven distribution” list?
Thank you for this question. There are several ways to look at it. First of all, we don’t know the extent of the virus. We have not tested in huge numbers yet. So all my other points are based on my understanding of the inputs that the modeling team has given me.
Inaccessibility can be a boon at this time. Perhaps it will take much longer for Covid19 to reach and be widespread in areas where transport is difficult. But the big question is how do we use that time? We can’t take anything for granted. My answer to this is two-fold. One, try as hell as much we can to ensure that Covid19 does not spread fast there. Now this is with its own problems. It will be easy to isolate, right? But we cannot have isolation either. We need to work this out, very carefully, with local governments. Social participation is very, very important.
Two, and this is going to be a challenge given the complex political alignments and frictions between states there today. We have had many months of blockades and violence which has contributed a lot to distrust with us at the center, and within these states themselves. So, to be very honest, I cannot sit here and give directives. At best I can be a facilitator of solutions. But leadership has to come from the region itself.
I am not sure I have answered your question satisfactorily but it deserves a lot more thought and effort. We will not lose sight, we can assure you that much.
PIB Director: Rajdeep Sardesai.
Rajdeep Sardesai: While it is reassuring to hear of the details, it is very disconcerting to know that community infection has started. Has the government been caught sleeping at its job?
PM: Thank you for this question.
In many ways, you are correct. I do not mind conceding that we were late to put our foot on the gas pedal, despite being warned by opposition parties on social media. But that is behind us. If you would like to punish me in the next election, please do so. But we have a job to do, we are looking seven days ahead. If you want to do post mortem, please do so, but I will look seven days ahead only.
Having said that, I would like to use your reach to emphasize that this battle is not just for us, but for the whole of humanity. I request you to communicate to our fellow citizens to practice social distancing, do tasks and work from home, help the community, encourage local business and do what they can to slow down the Covid19 virus. It is essential that we flatten the curve.
Thank you.
PIB Director: Sudhir Chaudhary from Zee News, you are unmuted
Sudhir Chaudhary: Sir, there are reports of this virus was created by Jihadi elements. Do you have any comments on the allegations of Virus Jihad that are surfacing on social media?
PM: Delete your Whatsapp.
Sudhir Chaudhary: sir, this is serious allegation. Please do not treat it with dis..
[Sudhir Chaudhary has left the meeting]
PIB Director: Announcement please. Please do not ask questions that are not related to matters at hand. Thank you. Scroll team, you have been unmuted.
Scroll: Where do you see the situation farther down? 14 days or 30 days?
PM: Right now we are working with the +7 days principle. There is another part of the team that is looking at things farther down the road. There are several things that are worrying for us. One, the greater danger of nutrition that even the current lockdown has caused. While we will be working hard to retrieve and look at better models to get food to people, it is keeping us awake – the idea that we may not be able to reach everyone is concerning.
At some point, we will have to assume that a large number of our population is going to be affected with Covid19, sooner or later. Till such time we don’t have a vaccine, we should work out systems and structures, using all the talent and systems we have at our disposal or we will add in the near future.
It is going to cost us and that is a major worry for the +30 day team. While I have announced immediate GST waivers, schemes, and other non-monetary measures, it is not going to be enough. We are even contemplating reducing the Income Tax slabs considerably in the next FY. No, correct that. We will reduce Income Tax for FY21. You can take it as done.
Let us discuss this in future calls. Please keep your questions coming.
[Narendra Modi has left the meeting]
PIB Director: Hari Kumar, New York Times. Go ahead, Hari.
Hari Kumar: Sir, would like to know if your government has considered a total lockdown?
PM: How many days? There are already lockdowns.
Hari Kumar: I mean a nationwide lockdown. Say 21 days?
PM: Yes, we did consider. We had a very long and heated debate on setting up a complete nationwide lockdown, almost close to a curfew. We considered it and decided against it. It is still being debated ocassionally when we sit for meetings, but we have, after considerable debate, very heated debate, that we will not set up a definite lockdown.
It seems like a good solution and often proposed by people who are fans of the Chinese success in Wuhan.
If we did take that step, there would be an enormous economic cost, which will be a huge burden for the next generation to solve. But it is not the economic cost alone that stopped us. It is primarily the human health cost and the battle with Covid19.
Even at the best of times, we don’t have enough nutrition in this country. We have food availability and distribution that is quite lopsided, quite uneven. On the one hand, we have excess, and even as we speak we should be aware that there are some parts of the country where there is severe malnutrition. Our overall malnutrition indices are high – our under-5 stunting prevalance stands at 37% while the developing country index is way below at around 25%. This is an important indicator – these are the children that grow up to be adults. It was much worse decades ago. So what does that tell you? We have adults who are undernourished – a substantial proportion of our population is undernourished and unhealthy even at the best of times.
Could you imagine what a 21-day disruption would do? Even if you look at the upscale Gurgaon localities where you stay, at around 7 or 8 days into your lockdown – if it is imposed strictly – you will dry up in your supply of fresh food. You will start making severe dietary alterations and not for the better. Your energy levels will sap before you know it, and you will lose, very quietly, your immunity levels. At the end of 21 days, you will not be as healthy as you were at the beginning.
Now imagine if you were to contract Covid19?
You could argue that the virality would have slowed down due to the lockdown, but that is an illusion. What is the guarantee? Zero. There is zero guarantee that the lockdown would have stopped the transmission.
Now think of this same situation in a basti in Gurgaon itself, say Chakkarpur, which at best gets lower middle income and is home to a large section of migrant and worker population. They’re also the same population as I mentioned earlier – undernourished, living in crowded conditions, questionable sanitation and susceptible to communicable diseases. We looked at the trade-off, and a long term lockdown is not the solution.
We are not China, China is a different society altogether. From a nutrition point also, look at the Chinese diet – it is primarily pork, poultry and other meat, lots of protein, and legumes.
That you can control Covid19 merely by lockdown measures is a dangerous illusion. You are only postponing the spread, as any epidemologist will tell you. The last thing you want is a full-blown transmission post lockdown.
At the end of 21 days, no one is going to listen to me if I ask them to stay at home. There will be no more options left to try. The state’s supply channels would have been disrupted, civic administration would have already been stretched, we may have to bring the military in. You really don’t want a battletank rolling down your street.
Short answer: no, my government won’t order a nationwide lockdown. At the same time, we are supporting and will continue to support state and local governments on requests for lockdowns, as long as they are utilizing the time gained to ramp up capability on hospitalization, health care, communication, financial support and logistics. Lockdown alone will not help.
PIB Director: Last question, Nistula Hebbar. Go ahead, Nistula.
Nistula Hebbar: I am tracking the BJP even as we speak. They are demanding that you bring a total lockdown and use the Army? Your comments?
I think they’re a party who have a strongman problem.
One of our renowned epidemologists who were involved in the H1N1 and other pandemics said “mitigate, not militate”. Do you know that we still have hundreds of deaths due to H1N1? We haven’t stopped the virus. Why should have have the illusion that the Army can stop Covid19? Nonsense.
Anyway, just to clarify, we did consider it. One of the scenarios that emerged from the modeling and discussion is that it will be easier to stop a man from getting out of the house, but will be difficult to use the Army to get a man out of his house. So in the first half, the military will be stopping traffic, in the second half it will be trying to get the traffic going, becuase eventually people will be too afraid to come out.
We want people to be cautious and careful, but we don’t want a population mass that is living in fear.
PIB Director: We have time to accommodate one more question. Aman Sethi, Huffington Post, you are unmuted.
Aman Sethi: You spoke about long-term change in work and life styles and habits. What exactly do you mean by that?
PM: We are working with the assumption that we cannot control Covid19, and any sense of control is an illusion. We cannot sustain long-term lockdowns for the reasons I have already elaborated. As long as we don’t have a vaccine – you know a vaccine is at least a year and half away if not more – we will have to work out ways in which we can run things. These won’t be optimum, but will be required.
So far Covid19 has varied amount of symptoms. In elderly and patients with prior health issues, it is severe, while generally – I think over 70% if I remember the stats – people recover with symptomatic treatment and some don’t even require hospitalization. While these are good things, we should not take it for granted.
What are long-term changes? Let me give you an example. There is this lady here… yes, with a television crew. You came with how many?
Reporter: Four, sir.
PM: In one vehicle?
Reporter: yes sir.
PM: Yes, she is here with four crew members, and they came in a single vehicle. All of them are coming from different homes, and if they traveled from Noida, they spent at least an hour coming here. So what are the long term change in habit that will be required here? The four people will have to come one to a vehicle. Or at best, two to a car. Now that will be too expensive. So what do you do? You eliminate the other three and only this… what’s your name?
Reporter: Natasha.
PM: Only Natasha travels. The TV company trains her to handle all the equipment, to do a broadcast; maybe not use satellite uplinking, perhaps Whatsapp or Facetime. You see what I mean? This is at the individual level.
I earlier spoke about transport and logistics. What the 200+ team is working on is exactly this, scaled up tremendously. Consider a food essential, like vegetables. What congregation points can you eliminate from production to consumption? Can you eliminate the APMC market? Can you eliminate the consumer vegetable market? Can you eliminate the Kirana store? These are all places where people crowd. We have to get going in terms of changing these structures and very fast too. We don’t have time to lose.
Let me reiterate. Controlling and containment is no longer an option. We have to build a scenario of transmission existing even as we go on in our daily lives. Community and individual participation is very very important. I will emphasise this again and again.
Thank you.
PIB Director: We have run out of time. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We will be going offline at the end of closing comments. Sir, if you would like to make closing comments. Thank you.
PM: I think I have spoken enough. Just want to leave it here that we are now assuming that Covid19 will spread and grow and are preparing accordingly. Please start acting on “slowing the virus” and what actions you can take in the time you gain. I appeal to the people that they practice social distancing, change work habits drastically, and relook at how we live and work. For the vulnerable, especially labour, farming and micro enterprises, please demand your rights and ask more of the government. For SMEs and all large businesses, well, we are in touch. You will hear more.
Thank you, good evening and may we emerge stronger.
[call ends]
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