Lockdown to collapse economy, warns Imran

Imran Khan calls for creating awareness about severity of pandemic and observance of

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday called for creating awareness among the masses regarding the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and the need for strict observance of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) as the country endured another day of major spike in new infections.

Taking to microblogging website Twitter, the prime minister shared a video clip, which revealed people speaking of their scepticism about the deadly contagion. The prime minister commented that the video showed “the dilemma confronting our government”.

Earlier this week, the prime minister ordered reopening of more sectors of the economy as part of easing the lockdown in order save people’s livelihood, particularly the downtrodden segments, including the daily-wage workers. However, since then there is a spurt in new cases. The country recorded a record number of cases every day and by Friday Pakistan’s Covid-19 patients’ tally surpassed the total number of cases recorded by China, where the disease first emerged in December 2019.

“On the one hand we have the masses who are not taking the Covid-19 pandemic seriously and on the other hand, understandably, we have our frontline doctors and health professionals, who are at great risk,” the prime minister said in a series of tweets, referring to the video he shared.

Imran once again ruled out the return to a strict lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus, stressing that the “elitist” idea would cause the economy to collapse and increase poverty. Instead, he insisted on a “smart lockdown” with strict adherence to the SOPs.

“And some of our elite, wanting a lockdown - the elite who have the privilege of spacious homes and income unaffected by fallout of lockdown,” he said. “A lockdown means collapse of the economy and in poorer countries a steep rise in poverty, crushing the poor as happened in Modi’s lockdown in India,” the prime minister added.

“Only solution as world has discovered is smart lockdown which allows for economic activity with SOPs. We are amongst pioneers of this approach. I appeal to civil society, media, Ulema and our tiger force to create awareness amongst the public of Covid-19’s severity and the need to strictly observe SOPs.”

The prime minister’s tweets came as the country endured another day of grim records.

Statistics suggested that the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases soared above 95,000 with the death toll surpassing 1,950 mark.

Earlier on Saturday morning, official data indicated that a total of 4,734 new cases and 97 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. It said 59,467 patients were under treatment in hospitals while 32,581 had recovered, which was 34.7% of the total confirmed cases.