Its been a year since India went into a complete lockdown to combat COVID-19. Lakhs of Indian’s since have lost their lives, their loved ones, health, social circles and we all lost our daily routine. 

It's been a year of exercising at home, dining tables becoming the new classroom and workstations, and adopting new terms like “social distancing” and “herd immunity” in our vocabulary. 

Though the lockdown was taken as a public health measure, it also showed us the reality of our public healthcare system and the growing inequalities in India, with the exodus of thousands of migrant workers walking hundreds of kilometers back home, local businesses and industries shutting down, and billionaires still managing to increase their wealth during all the turmoil.

As we still assess whether the lockdown was a success or failure a year after its announcement, the COVID-19 threat is far from over as India is witnessing a steady uptick of cases across the country in just the last 2 weeks, indicating, that we are in fact in a “second wave”. 

A total of 40,715 fresh cases were reported in the last 24 hours across the country to add to the tally of 1,16,86,796.

It has been a year of calculated risk for many thus it is critical to look at not just what the lockdown did to prevent the spread of COVID-19 but also evaluate where we went wrong. 

Host and Producer: Himmat Shaligram

Dr K Srinath Reddy, President of the Public Health Foundation of India.

Editor: Shelly Walia

Music: Big Bang Fuzz

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