Retailers urge states to use hospitalisation trend, not infections, as criteria for Covid curbs

The Retailers Association of India (RAI) said it will call on Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and other states not to impose curbs such as those put in place by Delhi to tackle the Omicron variant. Such measures to tackle Covid-19 are like "partial lockdowns" and they "create uncertainty for businesses and confusion in the minds of consumers," it said.

RAI, the country's largest retail group with 13,000 members, will ask states to go by the number of people hospitalised due to Covid-19 rather than infections as a yardstick for imposing curbs.

"We are going to write to other states telling them to please use hospitalisation as a criterion now rather than all the positivity rates," said RAI chief executive Kumar Rajagopalan. "See, if a lot of hospitalisation cases are happening, then we should get really worried and then you may need to do a lockdown. But until such time, why are you shutting things down?"


RAI had written to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal hours after the state government placed the capital city on 'yellow alert' on Tuesday.

'Look at Change in Covid Strain, Vaccination'
This led to closure of cinema halls and gyms and restrictions in entry to malls. Shops to be opened on odd-even basis between 10 am and 8 pm and restaurants and bars will be allowed to function at 50% capacity until 10 pm.

"The Covid strain has changed and the number of people vaccinated has dramatically increased," RAI had said in the letter to Kejriwal.

"Considering that the need for hospitalisation is significantly lower in the case of Omicron infection as compared to earlier variants, the number of hospitalisations should have been the criterion to consider because of the pressure it puts on the healthcare system," the letter said.

Retailers and restaurant owners said the latest curbs by Delhi under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) to fight the pandemic will dent their businesses directly.

Retailers fear that such measures by one state will persuade others to follow suit with similar restrictions to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

The spike in Omicron cases comes at a time when retailers were in recovery mode after the Covid outbreak. Retail sales in November surpassed pre-pandemic levels by about 10%.