-PM announces easing lockdown
-Asks people to follow SOPs to stop virus spread
-Total virus cases top 74,000 marks with 26,000 recoveries
By Ajmal Khan Yousafzai
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday announced further easing of lockdown measures across the country, even as he appealed the nation to adopt standard operating procedures (SOPs) and other precautionary measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. He was addressing the nation after a meeting of the National Coordination Committee (NCC).
“I want to request all of you [the nation] to follow the SOPs we have outlined to prevent the spread of this virus. If we don’t take precautions then we will continue to suffer,” Khan warned, as he announced that the government has decided to “open all the sectors” apart from those where the threat of “virus is still present”.
The premier warned the country that the coronavirus will continue to spread unabated and that people need to learn to live with it until a vaccine is developed.
“The world has agreed, the richest countries have come to the conclusion that the virus will spread no matter what. Nothing can be done about it. The virus will spread and our death toll will also rise […] I told you that from day one,” he said.
Prime Minister Imran said that he was always against lockdowns, saying that if it were up to him, he never would have imposed a lockdown. He added that lockdowns were not a “cure” for the coronavirus.
“Due to the presence of 18th amendment, provinces in our country can make their own decisions,” Khan said, as he derided the “elites” of the country who did not care about the welfare of the poor.
“The reality of our country is that there are 25 million labourers whose families will starve if they don’t work. So I, personally, have always believed that a lockdown was going to affect these workers.
“When we impose and enforce lockdowns, people starve. Those who live in DHA don’t care about these things,” the premier stated.
Prime Minister Imran said that the lockdown had caused “massive suffering” for people who relied on daily wages to feed their families. He cited the example of India as a country that had failed to take care of its needy citizens during the countrywide lockdown.
“Just look at India. They imposed a strict lockdown. And look at the effect of it on their migrant workers. Dozens have died on train tracks. Poverty has become rampant there. And the virus is still spreading,” he said.
Addressing the frontline healthcare workers fighting against Covid-19, the prime minister said that while his thoughts and prayers were with them during their “jihad” against the virus, they needed to understand that lifting the lockdown was necessary, as the country has more than 50 million people who live below the poverty line. Prime Minister Imran said that the country’s tourism industry should be revived once again, stating that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) governments will soon issue SOPs to allow reopening of the sector.
“I think that tourism should be revived because that sector provides jobs to many in GB and elsewhere,” he said.
“There are areas in our country [GB and KP] that can only be toured during the summer months. If we continue to impose lockdowns in those areas, the local people who rely on income from tourism to survive will starve,” Khan argued.
The premier also announced that all the Pakistani nationals stranded abroad will be repatriated to the country.
“I want to talk about overseas Pakistanis. I’m worried about our labourers in UAE and Saudi Arabia. They send valuable remittances to us. “We have decided that we will bring all of them back. This is good news for them and their families,” Khan said. He, however, stated that the government will test them all on arrival but that they will have to quarantine themselves if they are infected. Pakistan is set to reopen more businesses after Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the economy could not bear the impact of a longer lockdown, urging the people to follow the Standard Operations Procedures (SOPs) to stem the spread of the virus.
PM Imran, in a televised address, apprised the nation on the decisions made regarding the lockdown in the country to contain the novel coronavirus during the National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting held on Monday.
Noting that the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) met every morning and consulted everyone, including health experts from Pakistan and around the world, on every step, PM Imran spoke of the country’s response and the current situation regarding the coronavirus. “Since day one when we got to know that the coronavirus had started spreading in Pakistan, we imposed a lockdown following a national security committee meeting.
“We observed the conditions in Chinese city of Wuhan and in Europe when the virus started spreading and we were seeing how the world was responding. But at that time, when we had discussions and meetings, I was very clear on the path Pakistan had to take.
“Pakistan’s situation is different than that in China or Europe,” he said, noting that he had earlier informed the nation that 25% of the country’s population was below the poverty line, which “means that nearly 50 million people in our country do not eat two full meals a day”.
“After doing calculations, we figured out that there are 25 million people who are daily wagers and who get paid weekly and whose households had to remain hungry if they did not earn for one day,” he added, saying those families comprised 12-15 million people in total.
The labourers and daily-wagers, he added, were part of the informal, unregistered economy. “The virus spreads at a fast pace [and] imposing lockdown is not the cure to it… It only slows the spread of the virus. The lockdown helped reduce pressure on doctors and health workers in hospitals,” he said. “A lockdown is different for different people in Pakistan as well. There are people who live in palaces and there are those who live in slums their approaches to the lockdown were different. “Some 30-35% people in Karachi live in katchi abadis [slums]. What effect would the lockdown have had on them? On the one hand, we had the wealthy elite, whose attitude was completely different and who were demanding lockdown because there was a lockdown in Europe.
“On the other hand, we had the poor people and households where seven, eight or 10 people live in one room, the taxi- and rickshaw-drivers, the daily-wagers.
“I did not want a lockdown like the one that was imposed in Pakistan [but] due to the 18th Amendment, the provinces had the authority and took their own decisions due to pressure. PM Imran said doctors, elite, and the poor all had diverse opinions but it was the downtrodden ones of the society who did not have a voice.
“But in hindsight, I should not have stopped businesses and construction because we had to balance it. Coronavirus is not going away until a vaccine is not formulated. We have to live with it,” he said.
“America — where 100,000 people have died and which has given a stimulus of $3,000 billion — has also decided to lift the lockdown as their economy would collapse because there is no guarantee that the virus will go away if a lockdown persists,” he said, noting that it was the wealthiest country of the world.
“We have only given $8 billion to-date… Even if we keep people under a lockdown, there’s no guarantee that the virus will spread again when the lockdown is lifted because the virus is there as is.
“Virus spreads. Virus will spread. These deaths, I told you all the first day that this will rise and the virus will spread.
“If we have to successfully live with the virus, it is the responsibility of the people. If they take precautionary measures, we can tackle the virus and live with it. If we close specific areas, then the businesses of those areas will be affected,” he added. PM Imran mentioned that the government had prepared a ‘negative list’ of sectors that would remain shut down but “we have opened everything else”. The list, he added, “will be shared later in the day as a debate is being held over the resumption of tourism”.
“Several places only earn in three to four months of summers and if we do not open the tourism [industry], people will be adversely affected due to no income,” the premier said, noting that the governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan were mulling over it.
Citing the example of India, he said the lockdown had caused adversities there and people were forced into extreme poverty. “They have also lifted their lockdown as their economy cannot bear it anymore,” he said. “I want [the medical fraternity] to know that there are millions who have been affected by the lockdown.
“We are not in a state to extend the lockdown as it has had an adverse effect our economy. Our exports have plunged and we fear that our remittances might fall as well. “The government feels for you. Do not think that we do not take your conditions into account. I have decided to hold a meeting with their representatives as well. “I want overseas Pakistanis — especially labourers stranded in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and some others in Europe — to know that we are discussing how to bring them back. “Nearly 80-90% cases were imported and we closed off the airspace due to such circumstances. We have decided to bring Pakistanis back. We will test them and those who test positive will be asked to self-isolate at homes.
“Those with diabetes, blood pressure, and the elderly face a risk from the virus. If we implement the SOPs, we can save their lives as well. We are bringing a programme with which people can get to know about where the ventilators are available,” he said.
