Fighting Covid — and mobs

A worrying number of violent attacks on healthcare workers treating Covid-19 coronavirus patients are occurring nationwide. Reports suggest that people have been forging papers to breach biosafety rules and collect the bodies of relatives who died of the virus. In these cases, it is because of lack of clarity on how burial rites would be performed. Unfortunately, influential clerics, who have the power to stop such incidents by educating people, refuse to intervene. Why these clerics are happy to let a deadly disease spread throughout society is beyond us. But what should not be beyond us, or the government, is that when push comes to shove, they need the appropriate shove. As for the attacks on healthcare workers, we have, for far too long, allowed people to get away with these. ‘They were just distraught’, influential people would say as they intervened to protect relatives of deceased people from punishment.

While we await the results of an inquiry ordered by the Sindh government into an attack on hospital staff in Karachi, we wonder what action will actually be taken against the attackers. After all, such attacks take place all over the country with frightening regularity. Worryingly, anecdotal evidence would suggest they have actually increased during the crisis. The only difference this time is that the people were claiming that Covid-19 is a scam. Otherwise, it was just another case of lawless people thinking their personal loss gives them the right to destroy public property. So what should be done with self-proclaimed medical experts who thrash doctors after receiving diagnoses they disagree with?

The fact of the matter is that healthcare workers literally spend their lives saving lives. When someone attacks a healthcare worker, they are not just endangering their victim, they are endangering all the people that healthcare worker could have treated. Attacks on hospitals are not simple acts of reckless behaviour or even rioting. They are acts of terrorism, and the state must prosecute them as such. But, given that the police have already failed to find over 20 suspects in the Civil Hospital attack at their homes, we have little confidence that any justice will be served.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2020.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.