Customise pandemic response

The government must devolve power to respond to the pandemic effectively.

The Supreme Court's order last week directing the government to evaluate prevailing legislations on epidemics, and enact a new pandemic act has brought some respite for public health experts who have long been complaining that the existing legal framework is too outdated to deal with the Covid-19 crisis. The government's response to the pandemic has been haphazard at best as it has remained unsure about its next step since day one of the lockdown. Over two phases of the stay-home order, the government has failed to come up with a specific answer as to how it intends to handle the problems that come with the pandemic and the lockdown, or even who exactly is responsible for addressing them. The concern among public health experts and the general public, that the imposition of one prohibitory order after another under the Panchayat-era Infectious Disease Act 1964 may not address the pandemic holistically, is thus not unfounded.