Table 2

Assessment of Indian national lockdown (1.0 and 2.0) from 24 March to 3 May 2020 for the performance with regard to policy indicators

Ethical principle	Policy monitoring and evaluation indicators for response measures	Performance of indicator	Did response measures adhere to the principle?
Harm and necessity	Presence of scientific evidence indicating harm (eg, human to human transmission, mortality)	✓	Yes
Harm and necessity	Decided metric for harm measurement (eg, death count, case count)	✓	Yes
Justifiability	Presence of prior peer-reviewed scientific publications on the effectiveness of restrictions	✓	Yes
	Successful historical precedent (any instance before)	✓
	Presence of a dedicated response team for review of literature, adequate data collection, impact evaluation and situational monitoring to continuously determine the effectiveness of the restrictions	✓
Proportionality	Matching stringency of restrictions with the growth of cases and deaths in the epidemic In case of COVID-19: most restrictive measure (national lockdown) at least 2 weeks before 100th case and least restrictive measure (travel bans) at least 1 week before first case	✕	No
Least restrictive means	The number of steps between the least (travel bans) and the most restrictive (national lockdown) measures	7	Yes
Least restrictive means	Whether sufficient time intervals are given for every restrictive step to show the maximum effect	✓*	Yes
Utility efficiency	Does the analysis of trade-off (eg, cost–benefit analysis) between loss of livelihood and other losses against deaths averted and cases averted show net positive benefit?	✕	No
Reciprocity	Cost and population coverage	INR 21.7 trillion (US$294 billion) covering 420 million people	Partially
	Tax and loan payment concessions	✓
	Postponing non-essential routine activities (eg, examinations, sports events, etc)	✓
	Anti-discriminatory mass media practices	✓
	Guidelines in place for responsible news media reporting to avoid discrimination and reduce stigma	✕
	Presence of helplines to deal with mental health issues that may arise	✓
	Surveys for awareness among people about avoiding discrimination	✕
	Presence of grassroots ventures that help the impoverished groups	✓
Transparency	Presence of press conferences in local languages	✓	Yes
	Frequency of COVID- 19 press conferences	On average 1 in 40 days
	Presence of outreach methods and materials that are easy to understand, in local languages, and widely distributed	✓
	Presence of a public record of justification for the quarantine that is conveyed to lay people in local languages	✓
Relevance	Presence of public opinion polls	✓	Yes
Relevance	Presence of people’s representatives in the decision-making process of dedicated response teams	✓	Yes
Equity	Presence of food and shelter security for the below poverty line and low-earning unorganised labour groups affected by the restrictions	✓	Partially
	Presence of domestic violence helplines for women and children	✓
	Availability of healthcare access for the chronically ill and elderly groups	✕
Accountability	Presence of grievance redressal and feedback portals	✓	No
	Presence of public platforms to challenge the restrictions by speaking to authority figures	✕
	Presence of laws that allow for a process of appeal	✓
	Uninterrupted and autonomous working of the judicial system for fast-tracking the restriction-related appeals	✕
	Mechanisms for demanding reparations in case of life and livelihood losses due to restriction	✕
Cost and feasibility	Presence of laws that allow the implementation of restriction	✓	Yes
	Presence of a police force for restriction (eg, confinement) implementation	✓
	Ability to create places of confinement for restricted (eg, quarantined/isolated) individuals	✓

✓=yes or present; ✕=no or absent.
*Sufficient time interval given for every restrictive step to show the maximum effect was derived from31 which calculated the time taken for travel restrictions, school/workplace/public place closures and lockdowns to show maximum effect. No recommendations were given for social distancing measures. Of the three restrictive measures, India followed the minimum time requirement for travel restrictions and lockdown but not for school/workplace/public place closures. Since more than half of the available minimum time standards were met, we considered this indicator to have ‘yes’ as the response.
INR, Indian rupee.