Coronavirus and timely Policy Actions for Pakistan!

The pandemic coronavirus has spread in 164 countries across the globe and has affected 290,279 people till now in the whole world. Where 11,953 people are dead and 93, 618 patients are recovered. The pandemic coronavirus across the globe has a human capital loss and the slowdown in the world economy.

I will talk in the context of economics and public policy as per my understandings. The world highest growing economy china with 14.3 Trillion USD GDP has controlled the pandemic with the immediate policy actions and locking down the city of Wuhan. The pandemic is controlled from the further spread, but the disease has affected 81 thousand people and 3,255 patients are dead till now from the ongoing disease.

On the other side, if we talk about the second country affected by a coronavirus that is Italy. Italy is one of the tremendous growing countries with above 2.14 Trillion USD GDP Per Capita. And with the Life Expectancy of 83.54 years (2019). Italy has the second-highest number of people dead and the number is increasing every second to second. The pandemic almost reached every city of Italy. Italy has good health care services but cannot control the pandemic and people are dying in hospitals, homes and now on roads.

If we look at the graph of Italy below, it clearly shows that the pandemic is spread because of late policy actions from the government. And the US is following Italy with increasing the total number and deaths from the last week.

Now, I would talk in the context of Pakistan, where people are not taking it seriously like Italy was doing it, it the beginning and the disease has spread in a way which is out of control now and would kill thousands of people in Italy in the near days. Pakistan current government is quoting; “If we lock down the country, the poor people will die because of hunger”. This statement is valuable but in the current situation if I consider the Pakistan graph with Italy and the United States. It is increasing every moment like the two countries, shown in the graph below.

Pakistan Islamabad doctors had a press conference on 20 March clearly mentioned the government is failed till now in providing the best facilities in the hospitals, they mentioned there are 10 beds in the isolation ward and the low number of safety kits, and sanitizers. The government haven’t provided anything to us. Moreover, they told the press that we will not take our salaries and would work day and night to control the pandemic but we cannot risk our lives in working without protection kits. And they demand the country lockdown to control the situation.

If I talk in the context of public policy, the government shall have provided all medical equipment’s on priority bases to all big hospitals in all provinces rather waiting for the perfect time to come. When the perfect time would come, we might have lost the situations from our control.

The current government is thinking about the poor people but they have not thought about these poor people in the medical point of view. If the pandemic is spread to the rural areas of Pakistan then it would be very hard to control and would cause so many human loss. Currently, Pakistan is at the situation where the pandemic can be controlled with the immediate policy actions but if it’s delayed then the situation would be so worst and we might lose to control it.

I would recommend some policy actions to the current government as per my understandings and observations.

Policy Recommendations:

1. Lockdown the country by the Federal Government.
2. Take help of Military in the lockdown.
3. Provide all medical equipment to all hospitals in all provinces and the capital.
4. With the help of NGO’s shall provide food for poor people.
5. Force people to stay in homes and should Quarantine from the spread of the pandemic.
6. Shall strictly and immediately stop social gatherings in the whole country.
7. Prayers at home.
8. Television campaign about preventions of coronavirus.
9. Provide full-time electricity to restrain people to stay in homes.
10. Ask religious scholars to campaign about COVID in medical context on Television.
11. Cut half of the salary from all government employees and should invest in people.
12. The government shall ask the nation to contribute financially to control the pandemic.

Please stay at homes, read books, watch Netflix and cooperate with the government to control the pandemic coronavirus.

May Allah have mercy upon us and forgive our sin.

Ameen, Suma Ameen!

If you liked the content, don’t forget to leave your reply.