Covid efforts

Pakistan, and the rest of the world, is becoming increasingly frustrated with the Covid-19 spread, notably with the rapidly transmissible Omicron version of the virus. Currently there are over 104,000 active cases in the country, the highest since the pandemic began; 27 deaths have also been reported in a single day on Friday, and close to 8000 cases reported, the highest since October last year, keeping in line with the growing number of cases which have been coming in for the past several weeks. The positivity rate is over 11 percent in 14 of Pakistan's major cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Muzaffarabad and other cities across the country.

In response to this the Sindh government, in coordination with the NCOC, has begun a door-to-door campaign to try and vaccinate as many people as possible in the shortest period of time possible. In total, over 18,000,000 are to be vaccinated, with 12,000,000 to be given their first dose and over 5,000,000 their second dose. This, it is hoped, will raise the number of fully vaccinated people in the country, which at present stand at about 37 percent of the country’s population. The problem is the same across the country and it is quite obvious that despite the warnings issued by the NCOC people have chosen to forget that a pandemic exists and have abandoned masks, social distancing measures, or other steps that could help prevent the spread of this new variant which transmits with much greater speed than previous variants encountered by populations around the world. It is however also true that vaccination helps prevent severe disease and hospitalisation, something Pakistan cannot afford, given the danger that a full blown-out Omicron wave would overwhelm its health infrastructure.

While the myth has been spread, notably over social media, that Omicron is nothing worse than a bad case of flu, the facts according to medical experts, are quite different. Among the elderly, the very young, the immune-compromised and other individuals many of whom suffer co-morbidities, the Omicron variant can indeed cause extremely serious disease. In this situation, rather than simply isolating ourselves, as some people are choosing to do, it is essential that we step up our rate of testing. The testing numbers can only be speeded up if free testing is offered to people, given that tests in the private sector are expensive and unaffordable for most people, while free public-sector testing is difficult to access. The government has said free tests are being offered, but many are confused as to where and when these can be found. The Omicron variant should not be taken as lightly as is currently being done. Pakistan's cases continue to rise and with this we should see a rise in action and in our measures to combat the virus before it causes more harm to people.