Pakistan govt says not taken any decision for stricter coronavirus lockdown

The Pakistan government has not taken a decision to go for a stricter lockdown mode to fight the coronavirus, a senior minister has said, even as the number of COVID-19 cases in the country topped 64,000 on Friday.

Information Minister Shibli Faraz said the government was also satisfied over the situation in the hospitals.

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He said that though there were reports that certain hospitals were receiving an increased number of COVID-19 patients, the overall situation was “satisfactory”.

The load on a few hospitals was more because of the general trend in the public to go to one or two main and famous hospitals, the minister told the Dawn newspaper.

Faraz said a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan was informed that presently there were 404 critical patients in the country out of which 161 were on ventilators which meant they still had a large number of ventilators available for serious patients.

He said there was no need to panic as “we are comfortably placed and well-equipped”.

The minister said the number of COVID-19 patients was still less than what they had previously estimated.

Pakistan's coronavirus cases on Friday reached 64,028 with 2,636 new patients while the death toll climbed to 1,317 after 57 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours, the health ministry reported.

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Responding to a question, he expressed his concern over reports of violations of SOPs (standard operating procedures) by the public but said there was no decision to impose a “stricter lockdown” in the country.

He said the lockdown was not sustainable in a country with more than 150 million poor population.

“The situation is tricky. We are very closely monitoring facts and figures which will basically become our guide,” he said.

Faraz said there was no confusion among the government ranks or in the mind of the prime minister about the need for continuing economic activities in the country.