Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah believes that a complete lockdown is needed in Pakistan to get a grip on the third wave of coronavirus. “Do a lockdown or don’t do it, smart lockdown is nothing,” said CM Murad while speaking to the media in Islamabad.
The CM told reporters that his government believes that the government should ban inter-city transport for two weeks as well. He added that the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic was “dangerous”.
“I have antibodies yet I am still afraid of corona[virus],” said CM Murad to highlight how dangerous the COVID-19 disease is. He also slammed the ongoing countrywide vaccination policy, saying the government failed to procure the vaccine.
Can Pakistan afford a complete lockdown?
Analysts believe that Pakistan’s economic condition does not allow the country to prolong a curfew-like lockdown. Prime Minister Imran Khan has been of the view that any attempt to restrict daily wagers to their residences might lead to some serious law and order situation.
We should, argued the premier, be careful before we decide to take any stern action to combat Coronavirus outbreak. Some media persons slammed PM Imran for not comprehending the situation and letting the virus spread across the country. However, with the passage of time, the premier was able to offer concrete evidence to support his version of partial lockdown.
Countries should be able to swiftly identify and quarantine coronavirus hotspots instead of putting their whole societies on lockdown, but people must accept this ‘new reality’ for it to work, said WHO’s envoy to Russia. This is the same stance of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan who announced to quarantine specific areas rather than locking down entire country. It is worth mentioning that PM Imran Khan was the first leader to suggest this idea in his press briefings since March.
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“I do believe that there might be a surge [in Covid-19 cases], but we’ll be able to respond to it much quicker, having all the experience that we’ve got, unfortunately, over the last four months,” Dr. Melita Vujnovic, who represents the World Health Organization in Russia, told RT when asked about the impact of the gradual lifting of lockdowns – that has begun in many countries – on the pandemic.
Pakistan reports over 4,000 cases
Sindh CM’s statement came as Pakistan reported 4,757 cases and 78 deaths due to the coronavirus in the last 24 hours.
As per the NCOC, 43,965 tests were conducted across Pakistan out of which 4,757 were positive making the positivity ratio 10.8%.
Meanwhile, the national tally of positive cases has climbed to 667,957, with Sindh leading in the most number of cases with 265,433. Punjab has reported 220,392 cases, 87,055 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 57,833 in Islamabad, 19,557 in Balochistan, 12,663 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 5,024 in Gilgit Baltistan.
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The death toll of the country has risen to 14,434 with 78 new deaths. Out of those 6,365 died in Punjab, 4,497 in Sindh 2,342 in KP, 568 in Islamabad, 352 in AJK, 207 in Balochistan, 103 in GB.