Covid-19: on the rise again

After a few weeks of respite, the number of Covid-19 cases in the country is on the rise again. The number of new cases of the lethal infection and associated deaths are matching the levels which were last seen in July. It seems that this time, the infection curve is rising at a sharper rate than before. The virus is once again claiming the lives of our first responders, including doctors. And there are some notable casualties also including Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court Justice Vaqar Ahmed Seth and PPP leader Jam Madad Ali who was an MPA from Sindh. This alarming situation has prompted the government to start reimposing strict measures that put large swathes of the country into a forced lockdown.

While a more general lockdown, as seen earlier in the year, has not yet been imposed, the government is again starting to identify and lock down several hotspots. Wedding and cinema halls have been directed to stop holding indoor events while restaurants and shopping centres have been told to wind up earlier than usual. There are also calls for giving students an early and extended winter vacation so that schools can close and not be a source for the spread of the deadly infection. A ban on large public gatherings looms on the horizon.

Man is a social animal, they say. But what happens when he is restricted to act social. Not only does this have a psychological impact – as we saw for the better part of the year – but it carries an economic cost as well. In a country like Pakistan, which has been fraught with skyrocketing inflation, survival has become even more critical for the general public that had been suffering from depleting incomes even before the virus had hit them. Many businesses faced tremendous losses due to the lockdown and they are now unwilling to undergo another lockdown. Schools too are reluctant to stop operating, not just for economic reasons but also to overcome the challenges posed by online classes and the pressure to complete the syllabus in time.

Even though news of a largely effective vaccine being developed offers some hope, it will be months before it will become available. And even then, it may boil down to who can afford the vaccine. Being only able to supply 50 million doses – 10 million of which have already been booked by the UK – by the end of the year, countries will struggle to secure the vaccine for themselves. Since only First World countries have the monetary capability of securing high number of doses from private pharmaceuticals, it would mean that poor countries would have less of a chance to fight the virus. The situation could further expose the pressing issue of severe inequality around the world.

So on how to deal with the virus in the meantime, a right balance needs to be found between health and economics – as Prime Minister Imran Khan has been advocating since the very beginning. This virus has shown that for a cash-based and brick-and-mortar economy like Pakistan, a lockdown will spell an economic and social doom – and perhaps even a political one. When we decided to take off our masks in public at the ebb of the first wave, we showed that we had not learnt our lesson. With 7,092 people dead across the country – 37 in the last 24 hours – and 352,296 down with the virus, can we now at least show a greater willingness to do what is necessary to swiftly bring the graph of the infections down again?