65th Year -- No. 3569 Tuesday, April 21, 2020 www.mauritiustimes.com facebook.com/mauritius.times 16 Pages - ePaper MAURITIUS TIMES "Life imposes things on you that you can't control, but you still have the choice of how you're going to live through this." -- Celine Dion Paradigme économique In Confinement Are we in the phase of "reculer pour mieux sauter"? Maybe By Dr Rajagopal Soondron * See Page 7 Améliorer la capacité fiscale du pays Une réforme fiscale profonde est plus que jamais nécessaire afin de donner au Gouvernement les moyens de financer l'Etat-Providence et d'effectuer une redistribution des richesses sans encourager l'assistanat A Plea for Collective Par Aditya Narayan * Voir page 3 Ownership Opinion By S. Callikan * See Page 4 No, the end is not for any time soon Interview: Manou Bheenick – Last Part The system put in place for keeping the nation informed of the current situation, namely the daily } press briefings of Communications Committee of the Prime Minister's Office, has done excellent "We need to have an oversight work. Some can point to issues like the omission of facilities like cooked food home delivery systems, with the appropriate safeguards, right from the beginning. But compared to the main issue, the of how our money is going protection of the health of the nation in a critical life-and-death situation, these are minor issues…" to be used… By Paramanund Soobarah * See page 5 * Lire en page 8-9 Mauritius Times Tuesday, April 21 , 2020 www.mauritiustimes.com Edit Page facebook.com/mauritius.times 2 'Putting food on the table': When should we lift the lockdown? Agriculture on a war footing Ending pandemic restrictions too early could cause a second wave he world is watching closely follow- uring their interventions on the the population and put political reforms on ing the lifting of the public lockdown Covid-19 pandemic, several world the agenda’. Tin the city of Wuhan, where the leaders have said that we are ‘at coronavirus pandemic started. D We surely do not want social conflicts war’ against an invisible enemy. The dra- and an impoverished, malnourished and The lifting of the lockdown followed a conian measures that have had to be therefore unhealthy population – who will gradual easing of the restrictions by taken indeed reflect those that a war si- inevitably be less productive – to compli- allowing residents to leave their residences tuation imposes. The pandemic has ge- cate the already overwhelming Covid-19 on a limited basis. But importantly, this was nerated a parallel and as severe a crisis: crisis. Both the government and the peo- combined with a massive screening pro- that of food availability and access in this ple will have to do some hard rethink gramme to test people at high risk from the period of practically worldwide confine- about priorities, and take a long-term disease or anyone who had been in close ment. rather than a short-term view. This is contact with infected patients. This enabled Ending lockdown too early could be disastrous. It is undeniable that the single most where the war footing paradigm comes in, authorities to contain the infection and Photo: Will Oliver/EPA important concern of people has been ‘to for if we take things lightly the boat is reduce the number of cases by 90%. put food on the table’ – to use an expres- going to sink all of us. Similarly, lifting the lockdown in other scientists to learn more about the disease sion heard over and over again in the countries will depend on their ability to con- and its pattern of spread, and to work on richest country in the world, which is also Government will have to activate and upgrade the Ministry of Agro-industry’s tain the virus and protect the public once producing an effective vaccine. the hardest hit: America. There can be no restrictions have gone. To asses this and Strategic Plan (2016-2020) which con- 2. Can we identify all infections and more poignant example of dramatic decide when to end the lockdown, we need tains practically all the elements needed prevent new infections emerging? urgency of feeding self and family than to answer three questions. to ramp up that sector. Additionally, it has that of an American lady, a banker, To do this, we need to make sure 1. Have we suppressed the spread of standing in front of her Cadillac among to revisit the allocation of 2000 acres that everyone who has the disease is in isola- 10,000 such cars awaiting at a food bank. the earlier government had negotiated the virus enough so that it won’t produce tion. Then we need a way to trace every- Divorced, her ex-husband unable to give with the sugar industry, because there has a second surging wave in the future? one they have recently come into contact been cronyism to players with no notion of her alimony because he had lost his job, Answering yes to this is the most pres- with to see if they too need to be isolated. agro-industry, resulting in large plots lying and with two children to feed, she con- sing item. It requires us to be sure that we fallow despite visits and on site coun- But we also need to know whether peo- fessed that she had no shame in lining up have passed the peak of the disease, that selling by officers of the Ministry. Another ple can carry the virus without showing any to collect food packets. infections are declining and that we haven’t rapidly doable thing is to do a cadastral symptoms of the disease. Recent studies The situation may not be as dire in just temporarily suppressed the spread. survey of abandoned sugarcane lands have suggested that this may be the case. Mauritius, but there are reasons why we and put them to use in food production. In mathematical modelling terms, this But to be sure we need to urgently under- will have to put agro-industry on a war Yet another scheme is to enable small requires the average number of people to take large-scale antibody testing of the footing: Covid-19 is going to be a long planters to grow interline crops, e.g. pota- which every infected person spreads the population. haul; jobs are going to be lost and unem- toes, in sugarcane fields at affordable virus (known as the basic reproduction 3. What would happen if a second ployment is likely to go up; therefore thou- prices. It is government that must nego- number or R0) to fall to and remain less wave occurred once restrictions sands of people will not have enough tiate and bring in legislation if need be. than 1. The estimated value of R0 for were lifted. money to buy enough food, with a risk of Covid-19 spreading through the population malnourishment which will itself impact As for householders, if they want to without restrictions is between 2 and 3. The only way to be sure the public the economy, as an unhealthy population reduce the share of income going to food, Bringing this number below 1 will lead to would be fully protected is with effective always does; the majority of people will there are any number of ideas and fewer people catching the disease than antiviral drugs or a vaccine against the not be able to pay for long the exorbitant schemes that they can implement with recovering from it, so the number of new virus. Although progress has been made in prices being charged now, that are adding help from e.g. FAREU for producing at infections will decline and the epidemic will this direction, an effective vaccine appears up to nearly Rs 1000 per week – and least some of their own food. And this can die out. many months away. there are other household expenses too. be done on even small plots, with innova- This is where the lockdown and social If we want to lift the lockdown before tions such as household container tech- In his article in this paper on April 14, distancing come in. Modelling studies sug- then, we must make sure we have a stra- niques, vertical gardening, rooftop gar- Prof Sada Reddi discusses the problem of gest that travel restrictions in Wuhan tegy that will minimise the risk of a secon- dening etc. In fact, if we are realistic food crisis during World War II and how brought R0 down from 2.35 to 1.05 in two dary pandemic wave that could cause enough to grasp the extreme seriousness the colonial government had to set up a weeks. For the UK, an initial analysis sug- more deaths. Second waves occurred in all of the COVD-19 pandemic and its coming Food Control Board, and legislation gests that R0 has dropped by 73% since four respiratory pandemics of the past cen- sweeping impact on the country and passed making it mandatory for large land the lockdown began. tury, in some cases killing more than the holders and the sugar industry to produce across the world - which will equally initial waves. seriously affect the country too as regards But another recent paper modelled the food crops instead of only sugar. As he One way to do this would be to follow supplies - then we should not be waiting spread of the virus in China outside of notes, ‘the failure to make the island self- Wuhan’s example of continuing some for the crisis to end to get going.