Mobilise the Social Mobilisers

The PIDE COVID-19 Blog 28 talked about the critical issue of Coordination and Integration of All Stakeholders to Counter COVID-19. It rightly finds that government alone cannot defeat the virus. It puts three key players upfront with their expected roles. These players are businesses, community, and the government with various suggested roles. The blog takes the discussion further on how the future might be different based on the historical experience of the past epidemics. Government on the other hand has moved towards an EXIT strategy based on the evidence of how the lives and livelihood are progressing. Experience of other countries, facing a situation similar to us, can provide us the much needed insight. It is claimed that the tsunami of Coronavirus has not done as much damage as it has in many other countries, at least not as yet. But remember the PIDE COVID-19 Blog 25, titled ‘COVID-19 and the Immunity Pardon’, which says, “As they say, common sense should prevail and here the common sense is that there is no immunity pardon. A human is a human be they European or African or Pakistani!”. The latest position on the PIDE COVID-19 Dashboard gives a grim picture. The average growth rate post April 6th has not fallen and is around 7-8% per day with an increasing base. The good news is that the growth rate of deaths is steadily declining, meaning our health care system is fighting the battle well. With increase in hospital bed capacity through makeshift arrangements within existing system and developing new hospitals both by the federal government and provincial government are remarkable.