Necessary measure

This refers to the letter ‘Stranded students’ (Feb 1, 2020) by Sami Subhani. The writer has been very critical of Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza's decision to not bring the Pakistani students back from China at the present time. The writer goes on say that “several countries have evacuated large numbers of their citizens in China, with plans to evacuate those remaining underway.” However, what he fails to mention is that all those being evacuated from China will have to spend two weeks in quarantine. I have two questions for the writer. First, do we have the special hospital facilities to house all the people being evacuated? I doubt it if we will even be able to provide the special suits and masks. Second, are we that disciplined as a nation that the people being evacuated will voluntarily remain in quarantine for two weeks?

In my opinion our “stranded students" we would be better off remaining in China. At the present time there are no test kits available for the Coronavirus. My son and his family live in China. I would not insist on them returning.

Syed Hussein El-Edroos

Islamabad