The third wave of Covid-19 has brought with it a surge of cases across Lahore as well as other parts of Pakistan as people began to loosen up their social-distancing measures and life was inching back towards some semblance of normalcy earlier this year. By March 2021, cases were on the rise with the weekly average growing from around a thousand new infections to the current figure of an average of 3,700 cases per day.

Following on from the lockdowns imposed previously by the government, retail outlets were instructed in March to close down by 6pm and all markets to remain closed on weekends in an effort to restrict public gathering and a further worsening of the situation. Indoor and outdoor dining, marriages and large public gatherings were also restricted. Medical stores and laboratories, grocery and general stores, mills, fruit and vegetable shops and fuel stations were allowed to remain open throughout the week.

Most recently, given the worsening situation and Eid imminent, the government on recommendation from the NCOC, declared a complete lockdown from May 8 till May 15, with an inter-city travel ban and some extra Eid holidays in an effort to curb public movement. But unsurprisingly, any effort by the government to limit public excursions outside of home has created a kind of shopping hysteria.

Perhaps, it is the traditionally festive month of Ramazan, one marked by people gathering for iftar and preparing for the celebrations of Eid coupled with a kind of lockdown fatigue, that have caused people to double down on their excursions to the markets.

The MM Alam Road is frequently packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic, starting at noon and only getting worse as the day wears on. Packages Mall, already a hotbed of shoppers and people looking to pass a few hours browsing, is also bursting at the seams with visitors at all hours of the day. Big chain grocery stores, Liberty and DHA’s H-Block commercial zone, your mohalla samosa shops, you name it, they all have crowds, and many individuals (most shockingly, many shopkeepers themselves) are flouting the mask-wearing rules and throwing caution to the proverbial Covid-infested wind. No wonder the cases are on the rise.

Unfortunately, government-imposed restrictions on banking and office hours, and most shops closed over the weekends, are all contributing to crowding in the streets and shops. Since everyone is aware of the weekday time limit for such places, there is a sense of urgency to be out and about running errands, and the time limit has funnelled the crowd that would otherwise be spread over many hours to just a few.

One interesting difference from the earliest lockdown is that Covid has transformed into a relatively ‘known’ evil. Whereas in the first wave a year ago, the virus was unknown and a terrifying spectre, this time around most people know someone who has been infected at some point, or have gotten the virus themselves. As they say, with knowledge comes power and some people now believe they have the power to withstand Covid even if they follow imperfect mask-wearing protocols.

When interviewing individuals from rural areas, there is a huge paranoia and distrust surrounding the government-backed vaccinations and also a degree of disbelief over Covid itself. Most likely, many of the underprivileged, who have only scant access to information and virtually no means of getting tested as the nasal swab test is prohibitively expensive, may contract the virus and subsequently recover from it (provided the case is not severe) without ever realising they had the virus rather than what they assumed to be a common cold.

With the police and army being deployed to enforce mask-wearing and timely shop closures as per the restrictions, isolated incidents of the army doing spot checks on crowded shops, imposing fines and sealing shops for not following the SOPs are being reported. The largest traders’ union, the Anjuman-i-Tajeraan, is protesting the proposed lockdown and measures by the government as this is a question of livelihoods and businesses will undoubtedly suffer at a time when sales are at their apex i.e. just before Eid.

Popular marketplaces such as dupatta gali behind Liberty, or the crowd in the multitude of shops in Main Market, would be obvious choices for enforcement of the rules by the authorities, and yet on my visits to these areas I found no one there, besides my panicked self, urging fellow shoppers to wear masks and maintain some distance. One has to ask: if this is the situation in the major marketplaces, what must be the situation in local markets of more densely populated regions of the city?

The bottomline is that the current situation requires a delicate balance the authorities must strike between the livelihoods of shopkeepers and businesses, the public interest in preventing a further spread of Covid, and the appetite of the masses for shopping at a festive time such as now, both for daily essentials as well as items for the upcoming celebration.

The writer is a bibliophile, lawyer and freelance journalist