100,000 cases

With more than a hundred thousand Covid-positive cases and deaths in excess of two thousand, Pakistan now ranks at 15^th in the world on the list of coronavirus-infested countries. The cases of the lethal infection are now coming thick and fast — nearly 5,000 a day on an average — and daily deaths are also numbering between 70 and 100.

While the number of confirmed cases was bound to rise due to a rise in the number of tests conducted daily, the percentage of positive cases — 20-24% — over the last 10 days or so is actually what indicates how fast the virus is mushrooming now that the lockdown restrictions have been eased across the country. Besides, a sample testing done in Lahore by the Punjab healthcare authorities presents shocking statistics about the prevalence of the deadly disease in the provincial capital. The tests that had been carried out nearly three weeks back revealed that “no workplace and residential area of any town [of Lahore] is disease-free” with Covid-positive cases as high as 6,70,000. One wonders how better could be the situation in other big cities in the country.

The infestation of the virus in the community can be gauged from the fact that hardly any social class or a segment of the society is spared from it. While front-liners, including doctors as well as security personnel, charity workers and journalists, are already known to have been infected in big numbers and losing lives as well, now we have been coming across news of legislators, lawyers, sportsmen, showbiz personalities, etc falling sick with the virus. Some of them are even counted among the total casualties. Even an honourable Supreme judge has remarked that they “have also been feeling the heat” of the community transmission.

While we are mainly banking on the behavioural response of our people to the reigning pandemic as to its containment in our country, it’s worrying to note that a big percentage of people still have doubts about the very existence of any lethal virus in the country. Now wonder, the prescribed SOPs are being violated with utmost disdain. It’s time for the government to go about enforcing the SOPs through harsh punishments and penalties.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2020.

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