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Experts call for 14-day complete lockdown in entire country to contain COVID-19

By Our Correspondent
June 21, 2020

Doctors, professionals, and civil society activists have underlined the need for imposing a complete lockdown in the entire country for at least 14 days to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Speaking at a webinar jointly organised by the Centre for Peace and Development Initiative (CPDI) and The Change Organisation on Friday, the speakers asked the people to strictly follow the government instructions regarding the smart lockdown and wear masks while going out of their homes.

They also demanded that the government provide personal protective equipment (PPEs) to all the doctors and paramedical staff in the country.

Dr Muhammad Taufiq, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Sindh Government Children’s Hospital, said the provincial government had recently recruited many doctors but most of the new doctors had not received any training in handling an emergency situation like the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the new doctors did not know how to operate ventilators and incubators, he maintained.

He said there was a shortage of ventilators in the government-run hospitals in Karachi. The provincial government only provided the overall data of ventilators in the entire province, which might give one the impression that a lot of ventilators were available in Karachi, he added and called for issuing such statistics separately for each division of the province.

"The smart lockdown is better than zero lockdown", Dr Taufiq said, adding that the number of COVID-19 patients had increased after Eid because people had thronged to markets for shopping before Eid. “This number is now declining and it is hoped that after the smart lockdown, the number of patients would further decline.”

Aijaz Ali Khawaja of the Sindh Social Scientists Forum (SSSF) said many European countries were now coming out of the COVID-19 crisis and opening up their businesses because they had imposed a strict lockdown in the initial phase. Pakistan should have followed the World Health Organisation’s ((WHO) protocols, he remarked.

He called upon the general public to follow the WHO protocols and take preventive measures because there was no treatment for COVID-19.

Ishak Soomro, the CEO of The Change Organisation, stated that now many areas in District South of Karachi had been closed down during the smart lockdown. He said South District was the most infected district in the entire country because it was thickly populated. Many government offices and two major government hospitals were located in District South, he added.

Civil society activist Shujauddin Qureshi lamented that there was no proper awareness among the people and the disease continued to spread due to ignorance.

He stressed the need for creating awareness among the people about the importance of observing preventive measures such as wearing masks while going out of home. He added that it was being observed that fruit and vegetable vendors still did not wear masks.

Uroosa Khatti, the chairperson of the SSSF, said the Sindh government had taken preventive steps at initial stages of the epidemic, which included imposing a lockdown in the entire province. However, such measures could not prove effective as the government failed to properly implement them, she remarked, adding that now a smart lockdown had been imposed, which was also ineffective as shops were open and people were interacting with each other easily.

She said the people's response to the pandemic had been very poor as they were not following the state’s instructions and behaving irresponsibly.

Taufiq Wassan of the CPDI said a uniform policy was required under which the provinces and the federation should unite to control the spread of COVID-19. According to him, the elected representatives should play their role to create awareness among the public.

Atif Ali of the CPDI conducted the webinar.