RESTRICTIONS imposed on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr holidays have to a great extent helped improve the Covid-19 situation. A significant drop in positivity ratio has been witnessed in last two days.
This could be attributed to compliance to the SOPs and adherence to health guidelines by people as well as efforts put in by army, police and other institutions that remained alert on Eid holidays.
Resultantly government on Saturday decided to relax restrictions on transportation and commercial activities.
Given our economic situation, country cannot afford a prolonged lockdown as it mainly affects poor segments of the society especially daily wagers and labourers.
Hence, policy of smart lockdown is sagacious to minimise the impact of pandemic on country’s economy.
The pandemic has hit education of our children the most and now we have to find a way out for reopening of educational institutions, at least for class nine and above without risking lives of young lot. Clear SOPs should also be framed for conduct of board exams in a safe environment.
While NCOC has so far done tremendous work by taking timely decisions but there is no need to be complacent at all especially after latest warning by the WHO Director General Tedro Adhanom Ghebreyesu who said that second year of Covid-19 is set to be far more deadly.
We are witnessing the same in neighbouring India where the Virus has wreaked havoc.
India has been adding roughly as many new Covid cases daily as rest of the world put together.
Therefore, we need to stay alert to avoid such a situation, as our health infrastructure is not strong enough to cope with rising number of cases.
While people must continue to observe caution, the process of mass vaccination must be vigorously accelerated.
A vaccination awareness campaign on wider scale needs to be launched in order to clear doubts about efficacy and safety of the vaccine.
