Covid-19 positivity rising: Indian variant can hurt Pakistan, says PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan cautioned Thursday that there is a danger that the fourth wave of the coronavirus is coming, so in view of the increase in cases, he appealed to the people to wear masks, and warned of another lockdown if precaution was not taken.

The prime minister said that as our cases have come down, they have started going up again and are going up because we are in danger that the Indian variant of virus has also come to Pakistan.

“I know that people all over the world, including Pakistan, are tired of following SOPs, but we fear that the fourth wave of the virus is coming, so I appeal to the people of Pakistan in view of the increase in cases, if we wear mask, we will be able to save the country from the fourth wave of this virus,” he noted.

“The risk of the virus spreading in closed rooms, weddings, restaurants, etc. is high. If you are walking in a park and there is a distance between you, then you can avoid wearing a mask, but be careful by wearing a mask in buses. Wearing this mask is not a difficult task but it will save our country and economy which we have been able to do so far,” he emphasised.

Commenting on the situation of corona in the country, the prime minister said in his televised statement that the biggest problem remains the Indian type of virus. “It is a virus that is taking a different form from India and spreading all over the world, currently Bangladesh is witnessing a very bad condition because of this virus, while in India we all know how devastating it has been.”

Imran Khan noted that this type of virus has now reached Afghanistan, the hospitals in Afghanistan have run out of oxygen, and at one point India was facing the same situation. He added that now the pandemic has also reached Indonesia and the situation there is also bad, and there are other problems including lack of oxygen, while a large number of people are dying from this virus every day.

Imran Khan said that so far Allah has done us a special favour, no matter how hard a person tries, in the end Almighty Allah decides whether or not our effort will be successful; Allah has given us a lot of success so far. He said that according to The Economist survey, Pakistan is the third country that has saved itself in the best possible way and in addition to the government’s hard work, the nation has a big hand in saving the country from such a bad situation.

The prime minister said that Pakistan is the only country in the whole Muslim world where all the mosques remained open in spite of this pandemic during Ramazan for two consecutive years. In other Muslim countries, he said, mosques were closed.

“If we have reached here today, our National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) had a lot of hard work and monitoring, and they told us things beforehand but at the same time the people stood by the government and that is why today we are better than the world around us,” he said.

Imran Khan said that poverty has spread all over the world due to this virus, the poor have been crushed, just because when you apply lockdown, the biggest loss is to the weak and poor class. “So for your nation, for the sake of your elders and economy, be careful and wear masks on the occasion of Eid,” he said.

He said that like last year, this year too, the sacrifice has to be taken out of the city so that the virus does not spread due to it, and even on Eid, every effort is made to wear masks and be careful. He paid homage to the administration and said, “We have put a lot of pressure on you to be careful and we want to test you further to see that people wear masks during Eid and if we truly do, we will save ourselves”.

He added, “If the fourth wave of the virus comes and the cases start going up fast, then we will have to lock down, close restaurants, close wedding halls and affect people's jobs. If the people take precautions now to avoid these restrictions, we can save our country from hardship and we will be able to save our people from it, unlike the lockdowns imposed in Bangladesh and Indonesia.”

Until all the people are vaccinated, he noted, the virus will continue to come, and added that as long as we do not vaccinate all our people, this wave of virus will continue to come. “I want to urge people to vaccinate.”

“Unfortunately we do not make vaccines in Pakistan so it will take time to vaccinate our entire population. The United States has vaccinated its large population because vaccines are made there, but not in our country. As the vaccine arrives, so do the doses. We have the vaccine at the moment, so the people should take advantage of it, and if we get out of this fourth wave of the virus, we will be able to save the country from disaster,” he said.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan chaired a meeting on the progress of the Agri Dashboard and the Monitoring Dashboard of projects and agreements signed during the prime minister's visits abroad. The meeting was attended by Minister for Food Security Syed Fakhr Imam, National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yousaf, SAPM Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, SAPM Dr Shahbaz Gill and concerned officials.

The Agri-Dashboard for agricultural commodities will help the government identify and avoid any food crisis in a timely manner. With the support of the provincial governments, the Agri Dashboard will also ensure controlling the prices of food consumables. The prime minister directed to complete the final stages of the Agri-Dashboard on priority basis within the stipulated time and make it fully operational as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan said there was no shortage of anything in Pakistan and there was no need for imports. He conceded that “we have done injustice to ourselves by taking shortcuts and not thinking of taking advantage of the blessings bestowed on us by Allah Almighty”.

He was addressing the inauguration ceremony of Pakistan's first electric bike, and said that the future direction has been planned through electric vehicle policy. Imran Khan termed the manufacturing of electric bikes a futuristic and positive step, and said “we have to manufacture electric buses and cars in order to address the issue of pollution in big cities where the pollution level has reached dangerous levels.” In addition, he said, the government is also executing a 10 billion tree tsunami project and preparing master plans for cities to deal with the issue.

Imran Khan said that it is mental slavery to think that the country will not move forward unless there is a loan or aid from outside. “As long as a person walks on crutches, his potential is not known, so Pakistan is now on the path to stand on its own feet,” he said. He explained that when things were improved, it would benefit very few, i.e. importers but the country would suffer and dollars would go out and when dollars move out in big numbers and come in small numbers, then rupee value sheds and dollar goes up, which is called devaluation. “When rupee values are reduced, then rates of everything go up, poverty increases and the country becomes poor,” he said.

Imran Khan pointed out that all the development of China depends on exports and when they increased exports, more dollars came to the country and China has become an economic power, but it has never been noticed in our country.

For the first time, he pointed out, Pakistan is taking big steps in the field of environment and climate change and it is being recognised internationally that Pakistan is one of the leading countries in the field of climate change.

The prime minister said, “I have confidence in the people of this country. Whenever there is a test, our people move forward with an open heart. If they are not paying taxes, it is because they did not have confidence that our taxes were used properly but we are restoring their confidence.”