Sarwar Awan
Islamabad
The Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar, said on Sunday that a decision on whether or not the lockdown should be eased will be taken after taking all the provinces on board.
Addressing the media at the National Command and Operation Centre here, the minister said the National Coordination Committee on Coronavirus will decide the future course of action.
But he added that the government could not “open everything and ease the lockdown completely” because it would overburden the healthcare system.
Asad said, “The government will decide its post-May 9 strategies after a meeting of the National Coordination Committee and the decision to ease the lockdown will be taken in such a manner that it does not paralyse the country’s healthcare system.”
Umar said: “We will discuss with the prime minister within 2-3 days and then take a decision in the National Coordination Committee meeting about restrictions after May 9 [when the lockdown is due to end].
“The two most important factors to consider here are the number of beds in intensive care units and the number of ventilators.”
He said, “Restrictions will be eased gradually in order to provide livelihood to the people. We have significantly enhanced the capacity of our healthcare system. We currently have 1,400 ventilators for coronavirus patients and 900 more will be added in two months. At present, there are 35 coronavirus patients on ventilators.”
Umar informed the media that the Pakistan now had the capacity to develop medical equipment and soon the domestic production of ventilators would start.
Speaking about the spike in the country’s death toll over the last few days, the minister said that at the beginning of the pandemic, the country was registering a death or two daily, whereas,now that had significantly gone up. “There has been an average of 24 deaths in the country over the last six days,” he noted.
Talking about the impact of coronavirus on poverty and hunger, he cited a research by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics which showed that between 20 million to 70m people could fall below the poverty line. He added that according to Pide’s calculations, 18 million jobs could be lost due to Covid-19. He added that a recent Gallup survey found that one in four Pakistanis saw a reduction in their diets because of the virus.
“This is not good news and it goes to show how important it is to practice precaution,” Umar remarked. This number is likely to increase in May but will not get out of hand. The government has been increasing its testing capacity. Today our testing capacity is significantly better than what it was two months ago. Right now we have the capacity to perform 20,000 tests each day.”
“The fatality rate in Pakistan is far less compared to the US, the UK and Spain,” he said, stressing that the citizens needed to adopt precautionary measures in order to stem the spread of the virus.
