Sachin Bansal bats for reopening economy, says 'have to learn to live with the virus'

Bansal tweeted saying that India can't make use of the opportunities if the country's most productive people are locked in their homes.

Moneycontrol News

April 30, 2020 / 04:09 PM IST

Joining the growing voices on the need to resume economic activity, Flipkart co-founder and CEO of Navi Technologies Sachin Bansal has said it is "time to open up the economy".

Whoever wants to stay at home can stay. And for folks who are venturing out should maintain precautions but allowed to work if they wish to.

— Sachin Bansal (@_sachinbansal) April 29, 2020

Bansal tweeted saying, "We can't lock ourselves up for 2 years in homes waiting for a vaccine. India can't make use of the opportunities if our most productive people are locked in their homes. With COVID's growth slowing down it's time to open up the economy. We have to learn to live with the virus."

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The debate on whether and how to reopen the economy has seen a lot of participants recently. While many have been harping upon the need to open up the economy and getting back to business, there are others who are against the idea of rushing to resume operations for the fear that the same could lead to a sudden spike in the number of infections and thereby hurt the progress made so far in containing the spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier today, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said that we need to look at opening up the Indian economy in a measured way as the country's unemployment numbers are worrying. Rajan, in his conversation with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, said India needs to be cleverer in lifting the lockdown and open up its economy soon as it does not have the capacity to support people across the spectrum for too long, he said.

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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