43.3% Indians stocked up to survive for more than 3 weeks

NEW DELHI: More and more Indians have become better prepared in the last one month, as far as stocking of their ration, medicine or money is concerned, according to the IANS-CVoter COVID-19 Tracker.

With the second leg of the lockdown halfway through and Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying it’s a long haul, 57.2 percent respondents said they have less than three weeks of stock while 43.3 percent said they have a stock that will last beyond that.

However, if one breaks into weeks, most respondents said they are prepared for a week’s time. 24.5 percent of respondents said they have ration, medicine, or money to last a week. This is closely followed by 21.9 percent of respondents saying they are ready for a month.

Meanwhile, 20.4 percent said they are ready for a couple of weeks. There are 15.8 percent who said they are ready for more than a month with food, ration, and medicine. A tiny 5.6 percent said they are ready with three weeks of stock.

However, there is 12.3 percent who still seem to live on the edge with less than a week’s preparation.

But, the biggest takeaway from the IANS-CVoter COVID-19 Tracker is that in the last one month, a massive segment of society realized that the fight is long and the preparation should also be to last that long.

To put things into context, on March 16 when the tracker started, a whopping 77.1 percent said they have stock to last for less than a week. More than a month later on April 21, that number jumped to just 12.3 percent, which essentially means, people have become better prepared for a long-hauled lockdown period.

Similarly, on April 21, a sizable 21.9 percent of respondents claimed they are ready with ration and medicine that will last them a month. On March 16, not even one respondent could claim they have a month’s stock. In fact till March 22, just ahead of the announcement of the first lockdown, no respondent the IANS-CVoter tracker said that they have a month’s preparation.

Similarly, when the tracker started, 9.9 percent said they simply ‘don’t know’. As on April 21, that number is a big zero.