Statement on the lockdown and the COVID-19 epidemic We are a group of scientists, academics and public health professionals. The lockdown imposed by the government of India has allowed those who have the means to survive for 21 days and beyond, to stay at home to protect their health. But, for more than 90% of the workforce, which is in the unorganized sector or informally employed in the organized sector, and especially for casual labourers who earn on a daily basis, the lockdown is both an immediate health risk and an economic catastrophe. Since the lockdown has been justified by epidemiological considerations, in this statement, we would like to draw attention to some important epidemiological aspects of the lockdown. ● A lockdown of society, by itself, is not a cure for the COVID-19 epidemic and it is a stratagem for winning some time for the healthcare system. Epidemiological models consistently suggest that, in the absence of other factors, the epidemic could bounce back once the lockdown is lifted. If this were to happen at the end of India’s lockdown, the epidemic would hit a society already under severe economic distress, with potentially devastating consequences. Therefore, a post-lockdown plan is necessary that will ensure that the rate of new infections is kept low in a sustainable manner when the lockdown ends. While social distancing and better hygiene can help, these measures are insufficient by themselves. We are deeply concerned that the government of India has not released a roadmap, detailing how it plans to deal with the epidemic, once the lockdown is eased. We believe that such a plan should have been put in place before the lockdown was announced, and we urge the government to do so as soon as possible. Such a move would also enhance the confidence of people in the government’s long-term strategy. ● More testing is necessary: The lockdown may succeed in temporarily suppressing the epidemic, at great social cost, but we are concerned that the government is not using this precious interval of time to actually identify as many cases of COVID-19 as possible. In particular, the current restricted testing-policy creates the risk that a large number of mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic cases—which constitute the majority of infections— will remain undetected even at the end of the lockdown period. These cases could easily serve as the nucleus for the epidemic to bounce back. So, we urge the ICMR and the Government of India to take immediate steps to expand India’s testing regimen. We hope that recent advances in testing-techniques will allow India to follow the recommendations of the World Health Organizations which has consistently recommended large-scale testing, followed by additional targeted measures as a possible method of controlling the epidemic. ● Risks of a reverse migration: The exodus triggered by the lockdown also carries the risk that the virus will be rapidly carried to all parts of India, including those where healthcare facilities are the weakest. This can precipitate both an epidemiological and a humanitarian crisis. Rather than attempting to prevent the reverse migration, using the police, we urge the government to use its stocks of foodgrains and use urgent cash transfers to ensure the food-security and welfare of workers and ensure that they are not compelled to undertake long and unsafe journeys, which have already led to a number of deaths. We earnestly hope that the government will take the concerns above on board. As members of scientific community, we offer our complete support to the people and possible expertise in combating this disease and in ensuring that our country emerges from this difficult period with as little loss of life as possible. Date: 1 April 2020 Signatories (The institutional affiliations given below are provided only for purposes of identification and these signatures do not necessarily reflect the views of these institutes. To add your name to this list, please visit: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfpGMUO7P8DUfqdgp- hPSDIQpVa5seEXq4g2dfqaZ6L13fdTQ/viewform) 1 Adhip Agarwala International Centre for Theoretical Sciences 2 Alok Laddha Chennai Mathematical Institute 3 Madhusudhan Raman Tata Institute of Fundamental Research 4 Pushkal Shrivastava International Centre for Theoretical Sciences National Institute of Mental Health and 5 Reeteka Sud Neurosciences 6 Sandeep Krishna National Centre for Biological Sciences 7 Suvrat Raju International Centre for Theoretical Sciences 8 Vaibhav Vaish IISER (Mohali) 9 Dr. Arun Mitra Indian Doctors for Peace and Development 10 Dr. Shakeel ur Rehman Indian Doctors for Peace and Development 11 Kishore Bhat St. John's Research Institute former professor and head of community medicine, 12 Dr. Tejbir Singh Government Medical College (Amritsar) former professor and head of community medicine, 13 Dr. Shyam Sunder Deepti Government Medical College formerly JNU's centre for social medicine and 14 Mohan Rao community health 15 Dr. Mohd. Khalid MD, Emergency Medicine PGY1, KMC Manipal 16 Anandavardhanan IIT Bombay 17 Sumeet Agarwal IIT Delhi 18 Pradeepkumar PI IIT Bombay 19 T R Govindarajan IMSC, (Emeritus) 20 Sumeru Hazra TIFR 21 S.Krishnaswamy Retd from Madurai Kamaraj University 22 Saikat Ghosh IIT-Kanpur 23 Bhargavi S. Rao Centre for Financial Accountability 24 Tanvi Arora CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute 25 Prajval Shastri astrophysicist from Bengaluru 26 Dattaraj Dhuri TIFR Mumbai 27 Sarbajaya Kundu Universite de Sherbrooke 28 Srikanth Sastry JNCASR, Bengaluru 29 Supratik Chakraborty IIT Bombay 30 Aritra Bhattacharya IMSc 31 Arpan Kundu IMSC, Chennai 32 Bittu Kaveri Rajaraman Ashoka University 33 Suchetan Das RKMVERI 34 Tathagata Sengupta Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education 35 Ronak M Soni Stanford University 36 S. Viswanath IMSc, Chennai 37 Subhashis Banerjee IIT Delhi 38 K V Subrahmanyam Chennai Mathematical Institute. 39 Neeraja Sahasrabudhe IISER Mohali 40 Manik Banik IISER Thiruvananthapuram 41 R Thiru Senthil Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai 42 rohan poojary saha institute of nuclear physics 43 Anurag Tiwari Tata Institute of Fundamental Research 44 Aniket Khairnar University of Mississippi 45 Agniva Roy Chowdhury University of Maryland Baltimore County 46 Rahul Varman IIT Kanpur 47 Debasis Mondal Centre For Quantum Technologies 48 Siddharth K J Independent Researcher, Bengaluru 49 Shanta Laishram Indian Statistical Institute New Delhi 50 Harbans Mukhia JNU (Retired) 51 Kaniska Iit bombay 52 K. G. Arun Chennai Mathematical Institute 53 M. Madhava Prasad EFL University 54 Nandini Ghosh Institute of Development Studies Kolkata 55 Reuben George Stephen STMicroelectronics, Singapore 56 Bhanu Pratap Das Tokyo Institute of Technology 57 Pratik Nandy Indian Institute of Science 58 Vikas Dubey IIT Kanpur 59 Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay Nil 60 DURGA PRASAD DUVVURI Self employed 61 Arul Lakshminarayan IIT Madras National Institute of Science Education and 62 COLIN BENJAMIN Research, HBNI, Jatni 752050, India 63 R Srinivasan IIM Bangalore (Prof-Retd) 64 Anupam A H IMSc,Chennai 65 Surbhi Shrivastava CEHAT 66 Vinod Vyasulu Retired 67 Sristy Agrawal University of Colorado, Boulder 68 Shubhayu Chatterjee UC Berkeley Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, 69 Anupam Shaw Surat, Gujarat 70 Chandramouli Chowdhury ICTS-TIFR 71 Pritha Dolai ICTS 72 Sarthak Dutta IIM bangalore 73 Mohd Asad Siddiqui UESTC, China 74 Subham Dutta Chowdhury TIFR 75 Shivali Tukdeo National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) 76 Rakesh Das National University of Singapore 77 Chayant Gonsalves NCBS Bangalore 78 Prof. S. C. Lakhotia Banaras Hindu University 79 Prateek Sharma Indian Institute of Science 80 Pinaki Banerjee IIT Kanpur 81 Rajashik Tarafder Caltech 82 Sakshi Agarwal IGIDR 83 Deepak Malghan Indian Institute of Management Bangalore 84 Tulsi Srinivasan Azim Premji University 85 Anirban Kundu Calcutta U. 86 Venkatesh Raman The Institute of Mathematical Sciences 87 Debangshu Mukherjee IISER Bhopal 88 Aneesh P B Chennai Mathematical Institute 89 Sumit Roy Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai 90 Anubha Dhasmana IIM Bangalore 91 Manjunath Krishnapur Indian Institute of Science 92 Ramesh Sreekantan Indian Statistical Institute 93 Vishnudath K N Physical Research Laboratory 94 Sahel Dey Indian Institute of Science 95 Omkar Shetye International Centre for Theoretical Sciences 96 Chinu Srinivasan LOCOST 97 Vineeta Bal IISER, Pune 98 Enakshi Bhattacharya IIT Madras 99 S. Sindhu Sri Sravya TIFR Mumbai 100 Mohammad Imtiyaj Khan Gauhati University 101 Jay Desai, M.D. University of Southern California 102 Probal Dasgupta Retired from Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata 103 Kartik Shanker Indian Institute of Science 104 Nilanjan Bondyopadhaya Visva-Bharati University, India 105 SUBIMAN KUNDU IIT DELHI 106 Arghya Sadhukhan University of Maryland 107 Rahul Nigam BITS Hyderabad 108 Atri Dutta IIT Bombay 109 Siddharth Ramachandran Boston University 110 Yadavindu Ajit IGIDR, Mumbai 111 PUNIT SHARMA IIT kanpur 112 Arnab Priya Saha Harish-Chandra Research Institute 113 Adwitee Roy Chennai Mathematical Institute 114 Pratik Roy Chennai Mathematical Institute 115 Rimi Mukherjee Presidency University 116 Amitabh Joshi JNCASR, Bengaluru 117 Prashant Kocherlakota Institute for Theoretical Physics, Frankfurt 118 MD SAZEDUR RAHAMAN LASKAR TIFR, Mumbai 119 Tanmoy Bera IMSc 120 Namit Anand University of Southern California 121 Arpita Mitra IISER Bhopal 122 ARGHYA CHATTOPADHYAY IMSc 123 Shilpaa Anand BITS-Pilani Hyderabad Campus 124