- Rise and rise in infections as economy continues to sink
The pandemic continues to take a larger toll in terms of human life and social development week after week. There is a growing realization now that cases and deaths did not rise at as rapid a rate as they did in Europe and the USA at least partly because of the lockdown that the provinces had imposed in March despite the Prime Minister’s opposition. The concessions given to the clerics’ lobby during Ramzan and to the traders lobby a week before the Eid opened the floodgates. The country is facing the consequences of the government’s shortsightedness.
Thanks to the government’s fatalistic view that limited its responses to kneejerk reactions, the country is losing the battle both in terms of human casualties and economic development. The government’s policy based on developing herd immunity has already led to more than 2000 deaths. Per capita death rates in India and Bangladesh stand at half those in Pakistan. In economic terms Pakistan has turned out to be the worst-hit country in the region. Pakistan’s economy was already in bad shape before the advent of covid-19 and unemployment was on the rise. The employment miracle promised by opening the construction industry has turned out to be a mirage. According to the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects released on Monday the country’s economy was likely to go into the red this fiscal year and would be unable to recover even next year. It forecast a negative GDP growth of -2.6 percent for the current fiscal year and -0.2 percent during the next. As opposed to this, other economies in the region— India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan— would remain in the growth mode during fiscal 2019-20, even though all would suffer from the pandemic’s impact.
The much flaunted arrangements in terms of the provision of PPEs, ventilators and hospital beds are coming under increasing pressure as shown by complaints by both patients and doctors. What one expects from the Prime Minister is to provide hope and leadership in the period of the pandemic. His apocalyptic warning that Pakistan might also have to face the conditions prevailing in the USA, Brazil and Europe if citizens are not careful will cause despair rather than arouse hope.
