Zeeshan Salahuddin
My parents live in Lahore. They are both nearly 70. They both have multiple health complications and that is why the news that there may be over 600,000 COVID-19 cases in Lahore – most undetected and asymptomatic – was terrifying for me.
The alleged report also stressed the fact that a “smart lockdown” was now out of question as the disease has spread to virtually every locality and neighborhood. When confronted on a local television program, the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr. Zafar Mirza simply said he was not surprised with the news.
Considering the public’s behavior and disposition, this should not come as a surprise to the casual observer either. Following the initial lockdown that petrified most industry, transport, and systems across the nation, the ease-down in restrictions prior to Eid festivities witnessed some of the most irresponsible and unfortunate conduct by the general public. People thronged markets, stores, and malls, clambering over one another for unnecessary and trivial items. Social distancing was treated as a challenge to be overcome, and respect for one another took the back seat to the latest in lawn trends.
The virus, true to form, took two weeks to take hold, and has now presumptively infected close to 0.7 million people in one city alone. What choices does it leave for the federal and provincial government?
The choices in Pakistan exist between bad and catastrophic, and most seem to be leaning towards the latter. Every decision has to balance something awful against something worse.
The government had to strike the right balance between generating sufficient fear for people to exercise caution, while keeping it below the panic threshold is not an easy task. This was accomplished to a large extent, partly through ubiquitous access to information, and partly through enforced lockdown by authorities. However, as accepted by the Prime Minister himself in the televised speech yesterday, this disproportionately and acutely affected the daily wages class the most, resulting in some of the largest nationwide relief efforts by both the state and private groups.
The government has to strike the right balance between prioritizing human life against a starving labor class and economic devastation. This is further complicated by the fact that the labor class effectively needs most industry to be open and people on the streets to earn daily wages. The human life angle in particular is a moral quandary that requires inevitable sacrifice. On one hand is the argument that economic safety is pointless if the public is dying (and thus cannot enjoy it). On the other hand, what kind of life will people have in a country with a gutted economy and collapsed markets? Not to mention the fact that those below the poverty line may literally die of starvation.
How can governments balance the need for people to stay home with mild symptoms, and the probability of a run on hospitals by people who really need care? Pakistan does not have the best healthcare systems, facilities, or capacity. If the hospitals are overrun with the sick, it will create a massive national panic. If the hospitals continue to turn away patients, it will result in massive nationwide panic. All this is exacerbated by attacks on hospitals by groups claiming that the virus is a hoax, and frontline workers dying from the disease.
The government is not in an enviable position. Although it is still drawing comfort from the fact that as of June 1, only about 25 % ventilators in major cities were occupied by COVID19 patients and that, unlike Brazil with over 30,000 fatalities in a 210 million population (as of June 2), Pakistan’s death toll off corona in the same period of time was under 1600 ( June 2), with nearly 75,000 infected cases (compared to Brazil’s over half million).
Clearly, as the virus rages on, and will likely aggravate numbers in coming weeks, the authorities have to brace for facing the worst in an already fragile public healthcare system. But the “lockdown” represents a real hard choice in a country with one thirds of Pakistanis already living below the poverty line.
The only realistic way for us to get through this crisis is for the public to display unprecedented levels of discipline, organization, and compliance with social distancing directives. It is easy for the public to bemoan the state of affairs and raise a hue and cry about their rights, but very easy for it to ignore its responsibilities. The public needs to recognize that this virus is here to stay a while, that it is real, and very tenacious, and that they must do everything in their power to limit its spread.
The author serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, and is also the Editor in Large for MATRIX MAG. He can be reached via zeeshan.salahuddin@gmail.com and tweets @zeesalahuddin.
