Hello Everyone, this is Rishitha.

Let us see how communication about Covid is

done in India. Since January, government communicated with the pubic in 2
ways. The most attention catching were the two Televised addresses of our
Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

It was the time when the number of cases were increasing and it was evident
that India will be facing a potential explosion of cases.

In the first address, PM Narendra Modi called for Janata Curfew. People were
asked to stay at homes for a day. All the forms of transportation and shops
were shut down. Nothing was clear for the public except for the fact that social
distancing is very essential. This is due to limited information provided.

Later PM Modi requested people to come out to their balconies and clap aloud to
show gratefulness for the health care workers and Doctors.

In these 2 instances there was no proper communication. People had no clarity

of why and what is happening. They wrongly inferred PM’s request and came out
to the streets and joined public gatherings. This is a clear misinterpretation of
PM’s message.

Also, many of us would have come across some Whatsapp messages stating that
clapping was to produce sound energy that could kill the virus. These are the
wrong assumptions made by the public.

Next slide please…

The second address was to announce a 21-day lockdown throughout the

country...

Announcement of this lockdown led to many misconceptions. This announcement

lacked transparency and timeliness. Ample time should have been given to the
public to prepare for a lengthy lockdown, like for buying essentials and
completing some unfinished or important tasks. With four hours to go to the
lockdown, people raced out of their homes for a round of panicked buying. Most
of them stock piled the essentials. Providing proper information like how the
government has planned to implement lockdown would have avoided this type of
panic in the public.
The other devastating episode is that of migrant labourers. They had no means
to sustain the lengthy lockdown. They wanted to go back to their native places.
Thousands of poor began walking along the highways and railroads. We all are
aware of the accident at Aurangabad that killed 16 people. According to a
report, 198 migrant workers were killed in various accidents during their
efforts to go back home in the lockdown period.
Clear communication revealing, why people needed to stay at indoors, and how
the government would help those in need could have avoided this human misery.
Also, there were many wrong assumptions, one of them is that the pandemic
would end after the lock down. And there were few suicide cases registered due
to fear of COVID. This is due lo lack of transparency and limited information
provided. These are the few lapses in communication during COVID in India,
over to Noel.