A Case of Conflicting Concerns

Corona has posed before the World, a Socio-Economic problem

It is forcing countries to make compromises / trade offs, between :

Ø  Concern for Lives

    ( by enforcing NEW norms of Social Distancing / Isolation / Quarantine etc)

Ø  Concern for Livelihood ( Economy )

    ( by WFH / Video /  Doles / Free food distribution / Economic Stimulus )

Some decades back , management theorists Robert Blake and Jane Mouton developed

 Blake Mouton Managerial Grid,

-      a popular framework for thinking about a leader's " task versus person " orientation.

{ source : https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm  }

It was not a question of “ Mutual Exclusivity “.  Not a question of :

Either you have concern for TASKS  ( timely performing and completion ),

Or,

You have concern for PERSONS  ( Safety / Health / Well-being of employees )

A manager had the un-enviable job of displaying his concerns for both, at the same time

Today, under threat of Corona Virus, world leaders have a similar un-enviable job of having to display, varying combinations / compromises / trade-offs, of their,

Ø  Concern for Livelihood {  resumption of Economic Activities }

And

Ø  Concern for Lives        { minimizing spread of virus through Social Distancing }

Allow me to present to you below, a visual representation of  these Conflicting Concerns :

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              Parekh’s Political Leadership Grid

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In the above diagram, you see 4 quadrants ( A – B – C – D )  as follows :

C       ⏩	D
⬆    B	⏪          A

Scenario in quadrant D is utopian . Best to forget it ( at least in present juncture )

All that we can – and we should – attempt is :

STEP 1  :  MOVE FROM QUADRANT A TO QUADRANT B

Ø  Introduce solutions that allow us to reduce our  “ Concern / Worry “ for Lives , and enable us to move from quadrant A to quadrant B ( through reduced / relaxed Social Distancing )

     This will enable us to resume some low level of economic activities, without posing

dangers to lives of citizen

  Such solutions are detailed at :

Ø  Aarogya Setu : Ayushmaan Bhavah :                             [ 23 April 2020 ]

Ø  Social Distancing : Safest – Surest Method                     [ 21 April 2020 ]

Ø  Engineering of Social Distancing                                     [ 21 April 2020 ]

Ø  Thank You, Aarogya Setu Team                                      [ 19 April 2020 ]

Ø  Aarogya Setu : Good Beginning / Long Way to Go            [ 18 April 2020 ]

Ø  Congratulations, Shri Pawan Kumar Agarwal                    [ 13 April 2020 ]

Ø  “ India Post “ morph to “ India Retail “                             [ 12 April 2020 ]

Ø  Congratulations, Shivansh Sethi / Ankita Sain                   [ 11 April 2020 ]

Ø  Antidote to “ Anti-Social Intimacy “                                  [ 07 April 2020 ]

Ø  Corona Patient Case Histories : a Fragmented Database    [ 30 March 2020 ]

Ø  Remotely measuring Body Temperature                           [ 27 March 2020 ]

Above-mentioned TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS , will only help us to “ reduce “ the need for stringent Social Distancing

But these solutions will not altogether “ eliminate “ the need for Social Distancing

For that , we have to also work on war-footing on the following fronts :

Ø  PREVENTING the Covid infections

This will require vaccines

Ø  CURE for persons already infected

This will require drugs / medicines ( such as HydroxyChloroQuine )

Administering PLASMA from already infected patients

Rapid Testing Kits / Statistical Sampling

Abundant supply of masks – ventilators – PPE – isolation wards etc

Training of lakhs of Healthcare Staff ( Doctors-Nurses-Technicians etc )

STEP 2 :  MOVE FROM QUADRANT B TO QUADRANT C

For this “ transition “, Government’s Mantra seems to be :

Ø  Minimum Mobility, Maximum Work  / News18.com / Updated:  April 24, 2020, 10:59 AM

But, by itself , a Mantra is incomplete . What will be required is a :

SPECIFIC / DETAILED / TIME-BOUND ACTION  PLAN

Towards this, I have sent following E Mails to Cabinet Ministers / NITI Aayog  /  State Chief  Ministers etc :

Ø  When the dust settles                                         [ 17 April 2020 ]

Ø  Opinions may differ : Logic is same                           [ 15   April  2020  ]

Ø  Let not history repeat                                         [ 09 April 2020 ]

Ø  Economy : The Way Back                                    [ 08 April 2020 ]

Ø  Unlocking Lockdown : Calibrated – Gradual           [ 04 April 2020 ]

Ø  Not so ODD after all !                                          [ 01 April 2020 ]

Ø  How to convert Temporary into Permanent ?         [ 19 March 2020 ]

Ø  Opportunity in Adversity ?                                   [ 13 March 2020 ]

Ø  Caused by CoronaVirus ?                                     [ 04 March 2020 ]

 

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Dear Shri Narendrabhai,

Citizen of USA / Europe / South America / Iran etc ., are agitating for complete and immediate lifting of lockdown 

This amounts to bypassing " Quadrant B " and straight away jumping from " Quadrant A " , directly to " Quadrant C "  !

Irrespective of what happens in those countries, we must not fall prey to this populism , which will spell disaster 

I urge you to forward this GRID to all the Policy Makers and get their opinions about the way forward

with regards,

hemen parekh  /  hcp@RecruitGuru.com

24  April  2020

Aarogya Setu : Ayushmaan Bhavah :

आरोग्य  सेतुः  आरोग्यमान  भवः

Before long, Aarogya Setu Team will launch E-pass feature as described in :

Thank You, Aarogya Setu Team  ………………………………………….[ 19 April 2020 ]

Aarogya Setu : Good Beginning / Long Way to Go  …………….[ 18 April 2020 ]

 

They might call it :  Aarogya Setu  V 2.0

E-pass will go a long way to enforce SOCIAL DISTANCING

 

 Social Distancing Detector  will go even longer by raising ALARM when two persons come closer than mandated 6 ft distance. May be Aarogya Setu Team is already asking :

 “ How do we integrate this DETECTOR in V 2.0 ? “

But, Aarogya Setu Team is a restless team, always searching for ideas for improvement , even as Bill Gates sent following letter to PM Shri Modiji :

"I’m glad your government is fully utilizing its exceptional digital capabilities in its COVID-19 response and has launched the Aarogya Setu digital app for coronavirus tracking, contact tracing, and to connect people to health services.

Grateful to see that you’re seeking to balance public health imperatives with the need to ensure adequate social protection for all Indians," Gates further wrote.

[ source : https://www.livemint.com/news/india/we-commend-your-proactive-measures-to-flatten-covid-19-curve-bill-gates-to-modi-11587564361099.html ]

That “ exceptional digital capabilities “ of the Aarogya Setu Team

[ 'support.aarogyasetu@gov.in' ]

will feel challenged by the possibility of :

Ø  Detecting body temperature of a person, using E-Skin ( artificial Electronic Skin )

Ø  E-Skin ( tiny patch ) relaying the temperature reading to person’s Mobile phone

Ø  Aarogya Setu installed on Mobile to transmit temperature reading to Central Covid Database

Ø  Database alerting nearest  COVID TESTING CENTRE to rush with test kit

The Team might want to christen this V 3.0 ( feature named E-Skin ? )

In my following blog, I had reported about such a body-patch :

Remotely measuring Body Temperature   ……………………………….[ 27 March 2020 ]

However, the main limitation of this thermal-sensing body-patch ( developed by VivaLNK ) is :

Ø  Need for a re-chargeable battery ( every 7 days )

Ø  Person has to be lying in a bed

 [ source :

  http://www.vivalnk.com/covid-19 

http://www.vivalnk.com/product/temperature-sensor?hsCtaTracking=1504895a-dffd-409e-b0bc-bb48b7d1287a%7C15bfd583-63c0-4cb3-8948-36c7503a5dfd  ]

But suppose we have a body-patch that :

Ø  does NOT need a battery ( to power it )

Ø  can be applied to anyone moving around

Too good to be true ?  Read this :

[ source : Electronic Skin Fully Powered By Sweat Can Monitor Health, Serve As Human-

               Machine Interface    ]

Extract :

Caltech’s Wei Gao  

http://www.gao.caltech.edu/  weigao@caltech.edu   /  Tel : ( 626 ) 395-2958  ]

http://eas.caltech.edu/people/weigao  ,

… has developed an electronic skin, or e-skin, that is applied directly on top of your real skin.

The e-skin, made from soft, flexible rubber, can be embedded with sensors that monitor information like heart rate, body temperature, levels of blood sugar and metabolic byproducts that are indicators of health, and even the nerve signals that control our muscles.

It does so without the need for a battery, as it runs solely on biofuel cells powered by one of the body’s own waste products.

‘Can we get sufficient energy from sweat to power the wearables ?’ and the answer is yes.”

As they operate, the biofuel cells generate enough electricity to power sensors and a Bluetooth device similar to the one that connects your phone to your car stereo, allowing the e-skin to transmit readings from its sensors wirelessly.

They ( Biofuel Cells ) can generate continuous, stable power output (as high as several milliwatts per square centimeter) over multiple days in human sweat.

[ Further Details : 

https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/5/41/eaaz7946  ]

WHAT  NEXT  ?

Ø  By talking to Prof Wei Gao  , Aarogya Setu Team to find out the possibility of E-Skin being able to transmit body-temperature data of the wearer to Arogya Setu App ( - which, in turn, can transmit that data to COVID CENTRAL DATABASE )

Ø  Dr Harsh Vardhanji ( Health Minister ) to

     #  inquire with Prof Wei Gao , the possibility of setting up in India, a plant for

         Commercial Production of E-Skin body-patches

     #  time-period by which commercial production ( 10 million patches / day ) can start,

          provided, free land is made available and a grant of $ 100 million (Rs 700 crore ),

          is given

Dear Dr Harsh Vardhanji,

With limited resources for testing millions of Indians [ Test Kits – Healthcare Staff – Number of Labs ], in a very short time, question arises :

 From among our millions, WHO do we test first ?

E-Skin seems to answer that question

With regards,

Hemen Parekh /  hcp@RecruitGuru.com

23 April 2020

          

Social Distancing : Safest – Surest Method

And hiding in plain sight !

Home delivery of essentials – as being partially attempted by Delhi and a few other States

If Mohamed cannot be allowed to go to the Mountain, then enable the Mountain to go to Mohamed

If people cannot be allowed to go out to buy essentials, then deliver essentials to homes of people

Let us not keep arguing as to what items are essentials and which are not

Let us accept anyone’s definition and move forward to implement, HOME DELIVERY

Long before big stores / malls made their appearance ( business models imported from affluent West ), small stores in most Indian towns, made home deliveries

Even today, there are thousands of small villages which do not have even one store !  

Hawkers from nearby towns bring their wares in HAND-CARTS .

Village ladies carry vegetables on baskets held on heads and deliver from home to home

Even today, we get an occasional vegetable vendor , taking his hand-cart ( Laari – Renkdi – Thella ), from one housing society to another .

Some very big housing societies even provide them a permanent parking place , for restricted hours

What we need to do – and do it fast , before 3rd May when , possibly lockdown gets lifted – is :

Ø  Massively scale-up this miniscule tribe of Renkdi-wallas ( from a few hundred to a few lakh )

Ø  Make them carry all types of essentials / rations / foods / milk ( not merely vegetables / fruits )

Ø  Organize them ( by official online licensing ) and allot them specific streets / societies

Ø  Direct 60,000 + housing societies of Mumbai, to provide parking space to a government-designated Renkadiwlla ( for specified hours )

Ø  Allow online E Com retailers ( like Amazon – Flipkart – Swiggy – Zomato- Big Basket - Grofer etc ) to tie-up with such “ Government Licensed  Home Delivery Vendors “.

       Their Name / License Number / Mobile Number / Street – Housing Societies allotted

       etc., must be published on the web sites of these E Com retailers

       

       Mobile App of an E Com Retailer , while accepting an Online Order, will mention the

       full details of WHICH VENDOR will make this HOME DELIVERY , indicating

       approximate time of delivery

       

      All payment will be through mobile wallet embedded into the E Com retailer’s Mobile

      App . There will be no cash payment upon delivery

      

Ø  While granting online VENDOR LICENSE, government shall sympathetically consider :

#   Migrant Workers stuck in a city ( estimated 35 lakh in Mumbai alone )

#   MSME factory workers who have lost their jobs

#   Domestic servants who are sitting idle at home ( irrespective of govt pleading, no

     home- owner is likely to pay them wages for April )

#   Construction workers who have lost their jobs

#   In Mumbai , existing 3 lakh hawkers who ply their trade from slots on footpath

      For  this category of existing hawkers , read  OPERATING PROCEDURE  at :

                 BMC proposes : Hawkers will dispose ?            [ 26 Feb 2020 ]

               As far as “ funding “ lakhs of Renkdis is concerned, I have earlier proposed as

               follows :

              [  Unlocking Lockdown : Calibrated – Gradual /        04 April 2020 ]

      Corporate ( FMCG and others ) will be happy to donate such carts to the

      government ( costing approx. Rs 1,000 each ), if they are allowed to host their

      product-advts on such carts, permanently.

 

      This ( advt ) could be a 12” wide steel sheet along the 18 feet periphery of the cart

 

      Government may gift / donate such carts to footpath-occupying vendors, and track

     their movements through their Mobile Phones . 3 lakh carts will cost Rs 30 crore but

     these will roam 1500 km of Mumbai roads / streets, delivering good at door-steps.

     Mountain goes to Mohamed !

 

Dear Shri Uddhav Thackreyji,

[ cm@maharashtra.gov.in  /  cc:  adityathackeray@me.com  ]

If you implement my suggestion, you would save thousands of lives , through this simple method

Even if Aarogya Setu Team manages to launch E-pass within few days, we just do not have enough police to stop  FIVE LAKH  persons on the road and check their E-pass on their mobiles ( some will claim they do not own a mobile and other will claim to have left it at home ! ) . 

For most citizen, the only reason to get out of their homes on 3^rd May, will be :

“ I go out because I can “

With regards

Hemen parekh   /  hcp@RecruitGuru.com

22  April  2020