Lockdown is now part of our vocabulary but also of the public imagination of a government not taking the pandemic battling as it should be. There have been lockdowns before but none were effective and the result has been a considerable lack of confidence in the ability of the government to enforce such critical measures.
That these measures are key to the control of the virus is known to all but the government has also failed to do what is needed to make it happen. One can understand its reluctance in imposing rules which lead to economic distress but it’s not just the poor who flout the rules. Everyone does. And that makes it all the more difficult for the authorities. But are the authorities really serious about imposing it ? Worse, does it have the capacity to do so. And why has it failed to impress upon the people the emergency of the situation?
This concern grows because the Government’s record on several critical measures is less than positive. Its partnership with the private sector in managing covid patients has been so bad that it has earned a reputation from which the health ministry may never recover. Shahed-Sabrina are not just names but symbols of what is deeply wrong with the system, the corruption nexus between the two sectors.
In any such pandemic, corruption is inevitable and Western countries too have many examples. but the authorities have chased them down and the overall scenario is now much better.
But this Government is in denial about it going by the Minister’s statement about corruption. Is it that there may be no other option as the capacity to prevent corruption even during the worst ever health crisis may be that low.
The management of the vaccine import is made it look worse. Why it just never took such a scenario is disturbing. That dependence on a single source was deadly risky and imperils life. Statements that its soon to arrive are made every day but the fact that it was inefficiently handled is obvious.
Most power belongs to the amlas in this state and the arrest of Rozina was engineered by them on the Secrecy act due to her reporting on the Ministry. But it’s the same amlas who disclosed the price of the Chinese vaccine to the media , causing international embarrassment and worse, hiking of price and strain on Sino-Bangla relations.
Having failed or fallen short on most of its objectives, we have arrived at the nth lockdown and this time it was met by public jeering. They don’t know if the GOB is really serious or not about doing it. Shifting from Shutdown to lockdown to a “tough” lockdown etc also makes the Government look undecided and purposeful. It won’t probably make a difference but it might send a signal that the Government is trying its best.
This Government needs that serious image much more than it thinks if it’s to have the people behind it in this desperate fight. The corona virus is bad but the inefficiency virus is worse.
