- While on the brink of the precipice
For three months the people were continuously told that the strain of corona in Pakistan was milder than the one in other parts of the world and there would therefore be far fewer infections and deaths. A complacent administration announced the SOPs without making any effort to enforce them. Meanwhile the government first eased the lockdown and then lifted it entirely. This led the public to take the virus lightly and the people continued the festivities after the Eid. The chickens are now coming home to roost.
Dr Atta-ur-Rehman maintains that the coronavirus fatality figures are being under-reported while the actual deaths could be thrice or four times the number being announced. Further, that by the second week of August these could go as high as 10-15 thousand a day if urgent measures to control the pandemic are not taken. According to him a strict lockdown enforced during the first two to three weeks could have reduced the infection rate. He thinks the government should have used the coercive state apparatus at its disposal to enforce the SOPs, but failed to do so.
One wonders if the government has really cast away its rose-coloured glasses and realised the need for the tough measures it has avoided all along on account of political exigencies. The NCOC has now identified 20 cities all over the country with potential covid-19 hotspots. In Punjab, which is currently the worst hit province, nine cities have been chosen for action. In these cities a number of areas with the largest coronavirus cases would be locked down for two weeks. One would wait to see what measures are taken to weed out the virus from these areas and whether these succeed in reducing the spread of the pandemic.
The government’s seriousness would also be gauged from its attitude towards the opposition. So far despite the onslaught of the pandemic, the PTI leadership continues to waste its energies in an untimely offensive against the opposition. Unless the PM stops his calls of the no-holds barred confrontation with political rivals, and takes the latter on board to jointly fight the pandemic, his government’s determination about fighting the pandemic would be open to question.