Coronavirus-forced lockdown is hurting India more than COVID-19, Christopher Wood, the global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, told CNBC-TV18 on Thursday.

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Wood advocated for localised lockdowns in impacted localities and expressed aversion to blanket lockdowns that engulf the entire country. “I think it is sensible for the authorities to impose localised lockdowns where there is a cluster of cases. What I believe is not sensible is to impose the blanket lockdown on the whole economy.”

He added that with India’s young demographic and relatively low death rate there is no justification for putting the entire country under lockdown.

“The key point about India and other developing countries is that a lockdown does more damage to general human welfare than the virus itself. India has a young demographic and the death rate in India on COVID-19 is extremely low, so there is no justification for locking down a whole economy when the death rate is so low,” said Wood.

The analyst added that the sluggish pace of economic growth prior to the pandemic and the aggressive lockdown amid the pandemic is a cause of concern for India.

“Indian economy was extremely weak even before COVID-19 hit. The lockdown was extremely aggressive—one of the most aggressive in the world. So the big risk for India is that the combination of the weak growth, which they already had and the NBFC liquidity squeeze coupled with the lockdown the big risk is that it should give a consumer lending NPL

Wood made a rather unconventional claim that coronavirus “is in the process of burning itself out” and that a vaccine won’t be needed for a disease that has spread like wildfire across the globe and caused nearly 600,000 deaths.

“Personally I think the vaccine news will create a lot of short-term market volatility. The vaccine is completely irrelevant because as I said earlier, the virus in my view is in the process of burning itself out.

“I don’t believe you need a vaccine. I think the vaccine story is a pure hype. I certainly will not be taking any vaccine. My base case right on the virus is that it will burn itself out therefore you won’t need a vaccine just like you didn’t need a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),” he added.

First Published:Jul 16, 2020 4:34 PM IST