Tariq Saeed
Peshawar
With the death toll touching 320 figure and the positive cases of COVID-19 crossing 6000 mark, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa continued to be high risk province where despite repeated appeals and warning by the government, the people are least bothered about the social distancing or adopting safety measures. The government is seriously mulling to tighten the lockdown if SOPs are violated. The province recorded thirteen more coronavirus deaths on Sunday, pushing the number of people succumbing to the deadly pandemic to 318.
The health department said 214 new cases of the virus were reported in the past 24 hours, taking the number of persons affected by the infection across the province thus far to 6,061. Of the total fatalities 187 have been recorded alone in the provincial metropolis Peshawar where the number of cases stand at 2,398, yet people are least pushed about the severity of the disease as markets are flooded with Peshawarites without observing social distancing and safety measures.
This has forced the government to go for adopting strict measures. Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan has said that possibilities of Corona outbreak at mass scale have increased with the ease in lockdown and as such the need for strict implementation of precautionary and social distancing measures has also increased manifold. He has appealed to the public to strictly follow social distancing principles in their day to day activities specially when going out for shopping, and added that social distancing and other precautionary measures were the only effective means to keep oneself and others safe from the pandemic.
In a statement issued here the Chief Minister has expressed the hope that citizens would show utmost responsibility in adopting all the precautionary measures issued by administration in this regard. “In view of the difficulties faced by the public specially the vulnerable segments of the society due to lockdown measures, the government has decided to ease up the lockdown but it must not be construed as the pandemic is over and situation has come to complete normalcy”;
“Keeping in view the ground realties of the province and financial crunches faced by the people, we cannot afford to have a completes lockdown as we are faced with two different challenges of containing the corona pandemic and saving people from starvation simultaneously”, the Chief Minister remarked adding that the government is trying to maintain a delicate balance between both of them. Briefing media in Peshawar Sunday CM advisor on Information said the lockdown was relaxed but the Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan has issued clear direction on taking action against violators adding that the lockdown could be imposed again in case of non-implementation of the SOPs. He also visited different barber and salon shops on special directions of the chief minister and informed that the lockdown could be relaxed further if the general public followed the guidelines issued by the provincial government.
The advisor informed that the government has allowed barber and salon shops to continue their business activities for three days a week—Friday, Saturday and Sundays adding that other shops and bazaars were allowed under SOPs from Monday to Thursday. He informed that the reason behind allowing different businesses on different days was to avoid crowds in the markets adding that the government has eased the lockdown keeping in view the problems being faced by people besides keeping economic activities going on.
