The issue in Pakistan is where do we stand after being lock downed for more than 40 days in Pakistan and specifically Sindh. The lessons learnt to date is that the lockdown was not fully implemented in the city of Karachi. Most of the orders of the government of Sindh were flouted. In other provinces the orders were not that severe in language.
Safe distancing was not practiced by the majority. In fact, we believe and espoused the same many times in the past that in Karachi specifically and throughout the country it is impossible to enforce social distancing in the slums. It is impossible for the young as well as the adults to stay indoor when 10 people share a space which is around 400 square feet in area, they are forced to come out, the children when they have nothing to do will play cricket, the ball and the bat both will become instruments of transfer of the virus.
The lockdown in the mosques was announced both for the Friday Prayers as well as the Taravihs prayers and regular prayer except for a few mosques the same was not implemented. Though personally I feel that the ulema have not been smart about their decision making they have been emotional. When the Grand Mosque, Masjid Nabavih is closed, 114 Muslim nations have opted for closing the mosques for social distancing.
Why do our ulema have to take a different stance from the ulema, religious scholars and Alims of so many countries. Though they agreed to the SOP’s you only find them being practiced when a dignitary is visiting the mosque or cameras are around. Why were the Government orders not implemented it is simply because the orders look very good on paper but how do you implement them. When people do not follow orders the governments will tend to punish those who disobey by either fines or arraignment. First and fore most the people in the slum are so poor they do not have enough to eat how will they pay fine.
You arrest a few people the whole Thana will be surrounded by the dwellers of the area, law and order situation will develop and the government would have to release them. Secondly lets for one moment assume that people do not agitate, where will you keep the arrested people, your jails are already overcrowded, and god forbid if one of them is infected than you will be creating an incubation center, does that make sense. So in short you are in a catch 22 situation where the lockdown is practically not implementable. So is do nothing the solution; Definitely not we as people and the government must ensure that safe distancing where possible must be practiced without punishing people but by educating people.
Those who violate should be taken to a place videos should be shown of how corona virus can affect the people and how people die. Secondly we have to practice smart lockdown. All activities which have little economic impact and that what can be recouped should be shunned. Such as we can close primary schools, beaches, parks, entertainment center etc. We must allow economic activities shopping should not be in restricted hours in my opinion it should be open twenty-four hours so that chances of crowding are reduced. Industries and businesses which are willing to adhere to safe practices should be allowed to operate.
We have to ensure that those who commit should also practice them and if they do not shut them for days or a week so that they suffer economically. Whenever a case is discovered we should move the case that has been discovered into isolation ward and the people he has come into contact into Quarantine facilities. Than we should seal the area and do extensive testing of the people living there. This way we can ensure that the spread is restricted in an area. We need to be thankful to almighty that he has to-date spared us.
In USA which is a country where testing is more than 200000 tests per day versus ours twenty thousand, where the medical facilities are incomparable to ours the death toll is over 55000 to our 350. These countries where the death toll even today are more than 1000 per day have decided that they cannot strangulate the economy. The impact of prolonged lockdown can be even more disastrous on the human beings in form of depression, frustration, hunger, suicides. Businesses if they close down permanently will make countless people unemployed.
We know we do not have a social net; we do not have the resources to feed such a huge population. We have more than 40% of our population which is seeking economic support. The government machinery does not have the capacity nor the competence to deal with such dire situation or to address the needs of such large population has no savings to survive on. The private sector will exhaust itself in the coming weeks. Therefore, we have no option but to plan according to our situation and do the best to make sure that in this battle between death vs death the overall death rate is kept as low as possible.
This call to sanity has been echoing for more than four weeks, but to grab the media attention and to get kudos from the elitist GOS is doing what the most developed nations have gone for and in the process put our daily wage earners are undergoing their financial situation is to say the least distressful, how does he coup with children crying due to hunger and he not able to go out and get work. The situation is causing great mental duress and have brought them to state of mind which is just short of hopelessness.
The time is now to review and to come up with pragmatic solutions to deal with the situation, some of these have been highlighted above. There is a lot which can be stated on the solution sides and safety measures needed for easing lock down, but first there has to be an acknowledgement that we will deal with the issue on merit. The debate is not political it is an approach where the Federal Government is taking a different view from the Government of Sindh, we believe that GOS is playing to the gallery and playing on both sides of the wicket. This is indeed an unfortunate situation when sane people cannot sit down discuss serious issues.
This situation if it aggravates could lead to death of democracy and death of the economy. In any case the deaths being caused by Corona should be counted separately from the deaths being caused due to the decisions of those handling the situation. First is medical nightmare the second can very much be called a disaster created by the rulers. Who will be right in this by the looks of things PPP will be the eventual looser as dead people do not vote and the misery which PPP is heaping on the people will have greater impact all the corruption they have indulged in the last three decades. One can only ask the question” Are the people at the helm of affairs listening in Sindh specially.” It is high time that they share their forecast on this “Death versus Death situation”.
