THE number of Covid-19 cases has surged by around 50 per cent ever since National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) eased restrictions late last month.
Over the last few days, over one thousand cases are daily being reported with around 1,714 people contracted the virus and 38 lost their lives on Friday.
The figures are really frightening and clearly indicate that people have stopped observing the Covid-19 related health guidelines.
On Feb 24, NCOC had decided to relax most Corona virus-related restrictions on commercial activities, schools, offices and other workplaces, allowing them to function at full strength.
Under the directives, time limit on commercial activities had been lifted while condition of 50% attendance at workplaces removed.
Schools were asked to function five days a week while permission to hold indoor wedding ceremonies and opening of cinemas and shrines was granted with effect from March 15. Indeed these decisions were imperative to take the country towards normalcy.
Since the threat is far from over, it is important that awareness campaigns must continue vigorously and forcing people to observe SOPs during their routine life.
National Health Service Secretary Amir Ashraf Khawaja made a very surprising yet dangerous statement before the Public Accounts Committee the other day when he stated that government aims to tackle the Covid-19 health challenge through herd immunity and donated vaccine as it has no plan to buy vaccines at least during the current year.
This is totally in contrast to what top cabinet members said earlier about purchase of an effective vaccine. In fact the cabinet itself had set aside $150m for procurement of the vaccine.
Given the current trends, it has become all the more important that the vaccine is purchased on urgent basis to cater to the whole population.
Any complacency or negligence may lead to disastrous consequences for the country and entire population.
