Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday addressed a press conference about the coronavirus situation. Rahul had been critical about the Narendra Modi government's handling of the coronavirus situation, including its preparedness to tackle the virus and capacity to deal with economic fallout of the lockdown.
In a live video press conference Rahul said, In no way does a lockdown defeat the virus. It helps only to stop the virus for a short while. The only way to do this is to increase testing and chasing the virus and going beyond and this is my advice to the government. "Currently testing levels are too low. I am proposing scaling up testing. One advice to the government is, push testing aggressively. Maximise testing and use testing strategically, to assist states in their fight," Mr Gandhi, an MP from Kerala's Wayanad, said.
Rahul also predicted a "massive financial backlash", stating that the first wave of unemployment was already on its way."We must ensure that in protecting lives, we don't destroy our economy completely."He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have a more detailed conversation with states. "But Modi ji has a different style of working and we can work around that style," he said.