Lockdown 5.0 | No curtailment of economic activities across sectors post May 31: Report

Economic activities across all sectors are likely to resume, within guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs

Moneycontrol News

May 30, 2020 / 03:57 PM IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an employment scheme for migrant workers on June 20, saying that during COVID-19 enforced lockdown the talent from cities returned to villages and it will now give a boost to development in rural areas. Launching the 'Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan', Modi said there are some people who might not appreciate efforts of villagers in the fight against coronavirus but he applauds them for their efforts.

There will be no curbs on economic activities post lockdown 4.0, which ends on May 31, top government sources have told CNN-News18.

Speaking to the channel on ‘rebooting India’, the sources said that economic activities across all sectors are likely to resume, within guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The report said that the Centre is looking at setting up a ‘minimum baseline of restrictions’, which cannot be negated by states, but states will have freedom to add existing riders on top of what is already mandated by the Centre.

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The government is cognizant of concerns that opening up of the economy is responsible for the spike in COVID-19 cases, but sources indicated that “in lockdown 5.0 there cannot be any going back. Both health and economy have to go side-by-side.”

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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