The Pakistan government is facing mounting criticism within the country and abroad for its delayed reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the virus spreading quickly due to failures in screening and quarantining.
Pakistan currently has more than 2,400 confirmed cases and Covid-19 has caused 34 deaths across the country.
Most of the initial cases were Shia pilgrims returning from Iran, one of the countries worst affected by the pandemic, and the virus spread rapidly after hundreds of people were kept in camps along the border with Balochistan without any screening. The camps also had no medical facilities, and this exacerbated the situation.
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The Pakistan government also failed to take effective action to shut down mosques, with thousands joining Friday prayers on March 20 and March 27. Commentators within the country have criticised the government’s lack of action, pointing out that Saudi Arabia had suspended the Umrah pilgrimage and shut even the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
Early in March, some 250,000 men from Pakistan and abroad gathered at Raiwind near Lahore for a five-day meeting of the Tablighi Jamaat, after the country had already reported confirmed Covid-19 cases and there were public demands for the gathering to be called off.
The Tablighi Jamaat members were asked to disperse on March 12, a day after the meeting began, but the gathering has since been identified as the source of infections as far afield as Palestine and Kyrgyzstan. Some 550 Jamaat members, including nationals of Indonesia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and China, have been quarantined in Sindh after a Chinese citizen tested positive after attending the meeting in Raiwind, according to media reports.
Reports suggest the Pakistan government has failed to act on such gatherings or to shut mosques because of fears of a backlash from powerful Islamic organisations. In the face of the government’s dilly-dallying approach to the pandemic, the military has taken on a greater role in controlling the spread of the Coronavirus.
Pakistan’s planning minister Asad Umar, addressing a news conference on April 1, said the current lockdown in the country will continue till April 14.
Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, planning minister Asad Umar and President Arif Ali went into self-quarantine after a recent visit to China, which was apparently aimed at obtaining financial and other support for Pakistan due to the economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
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While in isolation at his home, Qureshi was critical of those blaming China for the spread of the Coronavirus. “The world is blaming China [for the outbreak] whereas it is an international issue…Pakistan had expressed confidence in not repatriating students from China,” he was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.
A medical team sent by China to Pakistan has been sitting idle because of a lack of interpreters, according to media reports. The team of eight medical experts arrived in Islamabad last week and visited several health centres and quarantine facilities for Covid-19 patients.
“But when the Chinese medical experts started conversing, some local medical staff appeared lost, unable to understand what was being said in Chinese,” The Express Tribune reported.
Opposition PML-N lawmaker Abdul Qayyum criticised the government’s handling of the visit by the Chinese medical team, saying it should have arranged for interpreters so that their knowledge could be transferred to Pakistani doctors. “People do not know in which direction are we heading and they are asking where is the government,” he said.