Immune to warnings

Despite reporting thousands of new confirmed cases of the coronavirus daily, the Punjab government has closed up all quarantine centers that were established earlier when the virus had started to spread. Accounting for over a third of total cases in the country and close to 40 percent of total deaths, doing away with one of the few state-enforced measures being taken to handle the crisis and asking people to quarantine themselves at their homes is simply a way of avoiding responsibility and duty. The WHO in a letter to the Punjab government has already voiced concern over lifting of a lockdown that was already under-enforced, without meeting any of the six key requirements to do so – and has recommended a strict two-week lockdown. Punjab's health department, in mid-May, presented a report to the CM based on smart sampling, revealing a horrific picture with an infection rate as high as six percent in the province’s most populous city, Lahore. The report also recommended another lockdown. The WHO’s recommendations and the report, much like other warnings and suggestions based on empirical medical and scientific data, were both ignored. It seems that an unsaid policy of developing ‘herd immunity’ is being pursued, which essentially entails allowing a virus to infect around 70 percent of the population for enough people to recover and become immune to it so that it eventually stops spreading.

The only perceivable advantage of this policy is that the government does not have to do much, just stand back and look at how the healthcare system gets crippled, the economy collapses and thousands die. An already underfunded and underequipped healthcare system is now running over capacity, but the government is unwilling to roll back its easing measures and is still banking on the general population to follow SOPs that cannot be enforced. The direction has to come from the top, which means the prime minister, but sadly he has never been in favour of any lockdown and is now advocating for 'Selected Lockdown'. Such contradictory decisions are creating fear and doubts which are further worsening the alarming situation day by day.

Qazi Jamshed Alam Siddiqui

Lahore