The Covid-19 or Coronavirus has caused unprecedented disruptions to normalcy all across the globe. Pakistan’s various provincial governments and the national leadership began suppression measures in late February, and my mid March 2020, the term lockdown became synonymous with containment or suppression measures. Based on events, as well as robust research and in-depth analysis a number of Pakistani scholars and public policy practitioners have engaged with the ideal manner in which containment or suppression of the virus may be pursued. In this Tabadlab Policy Roundtable, the authors of the most important papers and ideas around how to “lockdown” the country and beat the virus.

This roundtable features:

• Dr Durre Nayab of the Pakistan Institute for Development Economics, and co-author of the PIDE’s short paper on “Smart Lockdowns”
  
• Maroof Syed, the CEO of the Center for Economic Research and Policy (CERP), and co-author of CERP’s Smart Containment Policy Response
• Haris Gazdar of the Collective for Social Science Research, and author of the Jinnah Institute’s Lockdown Paradox
• Rashid Langrial, Senior Pakistani Civil Servant, and author of the paper “Signal-driven Covid-19 Management Strategy for Pakistan” and the shorter synopsis of this paper, for Dawn, “A better response to the Covid-19 challenge lies in smart lockdown strategies”
• Tabadlab’s Covid-19 Response Briefing on the topic, “Locking Out the Virus: Analyzing Pakistan’s Two Month “Lockdown” is available here