by Raheela Nazir
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- After successfully flattening the COVID-19 curve, Pakistan has recently seen a rising trend of confirmed cases and the country is now getting prepared and galvanizing its efforts to control the second wave of the pandemic.
A total of 2,304 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Thursday and 2,165 on Friday in Pakistan while the last time that over 2,000 new cases were reported in a single day was in mid-July, according to the country's health ministry. Health officials in the country said that the second wave of COVID-19 has started in Pakistan, urging citizens to take extra precautions to counter it.
The National Command and Operation Center of Pakistan, which oversees the country's coronavirus response, recently made it mandatory for citizens to wear masks at public places. Giving exemption to pharmacies, hospitals and clinics, the center has also ordered reduction in timings for markets and commercial activities to contain the virus.
However, authorities are yet to make a decision regarding closure of educational institutions, and said that the government may close schools, colleges and universities across the country if the coronavirus spread continues to increase in the coming days.
Last week, while directing authorities to continue the policy of smart lockdown in COVID-19 hotspots, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that the government had decided not to close businesses and industries in the wake of the second spike to avoid adverse impact on economic activities.
"We have decided that we will not close down businesses and industries. In case of the rise in coronavirus cases, we will shut only those activities which do not damage the industries. Otherwise, we will run the businesses and industries, but with SOPs (standard operating procedures)," Khan told journalists in Islamabad.
As the country has been battling the second wave of coronavirus infections, Pakistani experts and health officials believe that the country has a lot to learn from its previous experience of handling the pandemic.
In a conversation with Xinhua, Secretary General of the Pakistan Medical Association Qaiser Sajjad, said that even when there was not a single coronavirus case, Pakistan had ramped up efforts to effectively monitor air and land borders which greatly helped in slow arrival and spread of the virus in the country.
Pakistan took considerable measures to improve its healthcare system. The country has greatly enhanced its testing capacity from around 200 tests per day in the very beginning to over 30,000 tests, he said.
During the pandemic, the Pakistani government also announced relief package to stabilize the economy and prevent the lower strata of the society and daily wagers from the COVID-19 fallout, Sajjad said.
Executive Director of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Ansar Maqsood said that though the situation is not that distressing yet, it is crucial for the people to strictly abide by the SOPs in view of the increasing number of patients each passing day.
"Simply following very basic preventive measures of wearing a mask, washing hands, and maintaining a required social distance can prevent the spread of epidemic up to 90 percent," he told Xinhua.
"People took false impressions of the initial success as they think that the deadly virus has vanished and therefore, precautionary measures are being ignored recently. Furthermore, the new cases of the coronavirus are being considered as seasonal flu caused by the dry weather and dusty air," Maqsood said.
If citizens continue to display care-free behavior, it can lead to a dramatic loss of human life and present an unprecedented challenge to public health, and economic and social disruption, he said.
Maqsood warned that though Pakistan was able to suppress the first wave, the second wave could be more deadly than the first one. Enditem
