Prime Minister Imran Khan is rightly in favour of a moderate lockdown in view of the fact that the country has a large population who earn their livelihood on a day-to-day basis. They have nothing to fall back upon except to sell their labour in the market. On the other hand, the Sindh government is enforcing a strict lockdown which is an effective way of ensuring social distancing necessary for preventing the deadly virus. They are also hinting at further tightening the lockdown during Ramazan as they fear that infections might increase in this month because people tend to converge on markets to buy food items and for Eid shopping. The provincial government’s fears are not entirely unfounded.
In a situation when the common people are facing the two equally dangerous prospects of either dying from the coronavirus or from hunger, governments need to take the middle way. If birds are left in closed cages without water and food, sooner or later they will die of thirst and hunger. Curbs are necessary to protect people from the deadly virus, but excessive controls are proving counter-productive.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 2nd, 2020.
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