Lyari poses a new challenge to the Sindh government in its fight against coronavirus as the town reported 67 positive cases tested during 48 hours between Saturday and Sunday.
The report has caused unrest at the CM House Sindh whereby the CM Murad Ali Shah has directed the district administration to take immediate action regarding security and monitoring of the densely populated town to prevent the outbreak from spreading further within the neighborhood.
Pakistan People’s Party senior leader Waqar Mehdi, who is also the special assistant on inspection and inquires, has been assigned to look into the situation and devise an urgent plan to curb the spread of the virus.
“The situation is critical in the sense that in only two days we have registered 67 patients in the Lyari and Garden areas,” said Mehdi. “It’s not like that we had no case of COVID-19 in district South or Lyari neighbourhoods earlier, but the worrying thing is that the fresh cases have been reported from katchi abadis, which are more densely populated. Before the fresh 67 cases, we had coronavirus patients in Civil Lines and areas of Cantonment Board in district South. The fresh trend doesn’t sound good.”
According to reports, 17 people tested positive in union council Bihar Colony by Saturday afternoon.
Officials have commented that the lockdown, like other parts of the city, is not that effective in Lyari or many similar areas in the southern district. People don’t follow rules and the administration doesn’t look very much interested to enforce them for multiple reasons.
The situation demands immediate intervention from the top.