BACKGROUND: India, with the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, started imposing restrictions in the country
th and initiated a nationwide lockdown under Section 6 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 on 24 March 2020, followed
by four phases of lockdown and then gradual unlock of the country. The rationale behind the same was to avoid social contact. Alcohol
dispensing was also stopped during this time and was among the rst services to be reopened by the States. We propose in this paper that this
lifting of ban on alcohol sale during the pandemic has led to a signicant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country.
METHODS: This is a prospective, observational study, done by collecting data from the Aargya Setu App, which is a mobile application
launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on 2 April 2020 for contact tracing and elf assessment of COVID-19. The data of
cumulative number of cases in 12 selected states of the country were compared before and after the lift of ban of alcohol and signicance was
shown by the paired t test.
RESULTS: The number of COVID-19 positive cases in the country during nationwide lockdown with simultaneous ban on alcohol sale when
compared to cumulative number of cases after the lift of ban of alcohol sale during Lockdown and initial Unlock is statistically signicant (p =
0.04)
CONCLUSION: We found that the decision to restart the sale of Alcohol could have been a factor for rise in number of cases in the country in the
given timeframe. The decision to start the sale has also not been in accordance with the Indian Constitution and against the nation's founding
ethics.
