Role of police in preventing the spread of COVID-19 through social distancing, quarantine and lockdown: An evidence-based comparison of outcomes across two districts
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/14613557211004624 |
| Author | T K Vinod Kumar |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Role of police in preventing the spread of
COVID-19 through social distancing,
quarantine and lockdown: An evidence-based
comparison of outcomes across two districts
T K Vinod Kumar
Indian Police Service, India
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic is a formidable challenge to societies and governments across the world. The non-medical
interventions of social distancing, quarantine and lockdown have been adopted to prevent transmission of the disease by
contact. In some countries, police have been used to enforce public health laws. This research analyses data from two
districts in the State of Kerala, India to examine whether police efforts had any impact on the outcome of reducing
transmission of the disease by contact. Analysing the different methods used by the police across the two districts, this
study concludes tha t police efforts at non- medical interven tions reduce the spre ad of the disease. The st udy also
concludes that, in contrast to mere enforcement of public health laws and regulations, the strategic use of resources
is an important factor in achieving better outcomes.
Keywords
COVID-19, police, India, social distancing, lockdown outcomes, time series analysis
Submitted 06 Sep 2020, Revise received 08 Nov 2020, accepted 01 Feb 2021
The spread of COVID-19 has severely disrupted normal
life across the globe. Since its initial occurrence in Novem-
ber 2019, the disease has spread rapidly around the world.
The first reported case in India was in the State of Kerala on
30 January 2020, when the disease was reported in a stu-
dent returning from Wuhan. In March 2020, the occurrence
of the disease became more frequent in India and Kerala.
The response to the disease included two components:
treatment of people who had contracted the disease, and
steps to prevent spread of the disease in the community
through the non-medical interventions of home quarantine,
social distancing and lockdown. In India, as in many other
countries, the police have played an important role in
ensuring these non-medical interventions are enforced.
Because the pandemic is a recent phenomen on, there
have been few evidence-based studies on the impact of
non-medical interventions on spread of the disease. This
article uses instances of special police interventions in two
districts in Kerala and examines whether there were any
statistically significant changes in transmission of the dis-
ease through contact across the two districts where there
were different forms of police interventions.
Literature review
Pandemics are rare events that pose extreme challenges to
societies and governments (Jain et al., 2018). The rarity of
the event poses challenges to identify instruments and
methods to respond to the problem at both policy and field
implementation levels. It is a great responsibility, and state
powers have been mainly exercised to: (a) promote public
Corresponding author:
T K Vinod Kumar, Indian Police Service, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala 695014, India.
Email: tkvkcj@gmail.com
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2021, Vol. 23(2) 196–207
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/14613557211004624
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