At such a crucial juncture, people need to keep their petty differences aside
KARACHI: The Covid-19 situation in Pakistan is slowly taking a turn for the worse as around 1,500 cases are now emerging every day on an average, taking the tally past 42,000 cases. Currently, around 900 people have lost their lives while 11,000 have recovered. It seems that Pakistan is dying a slow death while authorities remain embroiled in their political games.
A recent news report indicates that the testing capacity in the country has increased by 30%. The National Command and Operation Centre has announced that over 14,000 tests were carried out across the country in a single day while around 360,000 tests have been conducted altogether. This is by no means a reason for satisfaction as testing capabilities only portray the severity of the situation. What is equally necessary is how we react to the results. One cannot emphasise enough on the importance of abiding by protocols and SOPs, currently being violated across densely populated cities such as Karachi. With Eid around the corner, hordes of citizens are thronging marketplaces as if the pandemic had never even emerged. To make things worse, the federal and provincial governments seem to be on totally different planes as lockdown measures announced by each are contradictory to one another.
At such a crucial juncture, people need to keep their petty differences aside and focus on the formidable task of controlling the spread. The more the situation lingers on, the more problems it will create for everyone. The first step in alleviating the problem is to introduce a nationwide system by calling upon all private and government factions to pool in resources so that a collective action can be taken at the earliest.
Reham Nabeel
Published in The Express Tribune, May 19th, 2020.
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