By Shakeel Ahmed
ISLAMABAD: Six months after the Coronavirus arrived in Pakistan, the country appears to have dodged the worst of the pandemic, baffling health experts and dampening fears its crowded urban areas and ramshackle hospitals will be overrun.
Following an initial surge, the number of infections has plummeted in recent weeks, with Covid-19 deaths hovering in the single digits each day, while neighbouring India tallies hundreds of fatalities.
Pakistan has a long history of failing to contain myriad infectious diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and hepatitis for various socio-political reasons, while successive governments have underfunded its healthcare sector for decades.
Added to that, many people live in crowded, multi-generational homes or packed apartment buildings that favour rampant virus transmission. “No one has been able to explain this decline. We don’t have any concrete explanation,” said Salman Haseeb, a doctor at Lahore’s Services Hospital.
