By Foday Moriba Conteh
As Sierra Leone enters Day 4 of a national inter-district lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and with the economy taking a slight beating amid the lockdown, Economist Prince Jacob Macauley said that he has come up with a smart lockdown plan – that would work similar to economic stability plans – that save lives and livelihoods.
Economist Prince Jacob Macauley said the Government Policy Unit has been working tirelessly with healthcare and financial experts, policy specialists, and its shadow cabinet to devise a sustainable and flexible Smart Lockdown to supplement Government’s coronavirus response effort.
They planned to submit the Smart Lockdown working paper which can be updated and amended by President Bio.
“Managing Covid-19 will require a marathon, not a sprint. Realistically, Sierra Leone may have to contain the coronavirus right up until a vaccine is widely available in 18-24 months’ time. We must hope for a shorter period but plan pragmatically for a long one. In addition to this, Sierra Leone was already in rebuilding its economy before the coronavirus hit. Under a hard lockdown we are heading towards an economic depression,” Macauley said.
He said it was going to be very hard to fund an adequate health response over that time period, while also bridging poor households and small businesses to the other side.
“Therefore, we need to contain this virus over the coming months and beyond in such a way that as many of us as possible can get back to work…We believe that it is a false choice to distinguish between a loss of lives and a loss of livelihoods. Given that economically active citizens pay for our food, hospitals, and doctors, an economic collapse as the result of a continued hard lockdown will also equate to a loss of life. Sierra Leone needs a strategy to balance the containment of Covid-19 and the containment of the economic fallout as a result of the lockdown, addressing the twin threat to Sierra Leone lives: the spread of infection and grinding economic recession,” the renowned Economist maintained.
He said Sierra Leone need a phased and flexible approach to ease the lockdown while ensuring that the country contains the spread of the coronavirus as Covid-19 will not simply disappear once the lockdown is lifted.
“Sierra Leone cannot afford a hard lockdown. The economic repercussions of a hard and extended lockdown will be disastrous for the Sierra Leone economy, and thousands of taxpaying citizens will emerge from it unemployed as a result. Furthermore, Sierra Leone does not have the fiscal space necessary to accommodate the severe assault a hard lockdown will unleash on our economy,” Macauley said.
How will the Smart Lockdown work?
The Economist’s Smart Lockdown functions similarly to an energy supply or the different stages of water restrictions previously seen during the Freetown drought.
In addition to the introduction of the Smart Lockdown, Economist Macauley’s Covid-19 strategy for managing lives and livelihoods includes:
* Moving between lockdown stages (different specified stages of economic and social activity) in response to what the data is telling us e.g. about new daily infections and hospital capacity.
* Massive rollout of testing, tracking, tracing, and treatment coupled with transparent reporting of data.
* Massive build of healthcare capacity coupled with transparent reporting of progress data.
* Enabling and strict enforcement of the wearing of protective face masks in all public areas.
* The roll out of a comprehensive public education campaign: hygiene, diagnosis, handling. This includes health protocols for public spaces and workplaces;
* Assistance to the high-risk group to continue isolating where possible.
* Strict border control.
* Bold economic stimulus/relief package
* Sweeping reforms in Government and to our economy.
Indeed, it is very rational to have a Smart Lock Down in place than a Hard Lock Down as espoused by the Economist taking into consideration the fragility of the country’s economy.
