COVID-19 will continue to spread, Asad Umar tells parliament

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – Planning Minister Asad Umar has rejected the implications that a strict lockdown could have erased the novel coronavirus, saying that COVID-19 is a highly-infectious disease that will continue to spread. While addressing the session of National Assembly, Asad Umar said that if a lockdown could have ended the virus, at least it would have been proven by at least one country. “Corona has to spread but we have to go with this pandemic,” he added. The minister pointed out that in countries that imposed strict lockdowns to curb the spread, the disease reemerged after restrictions were eased. “This is not dengue which will go away if we kill mosquitoes,” he said, adding that the disease will only end once a vaccine is developed. He also declared that Prime Minister Imran Khan had foreseen the impact of a lockdown in the country on poor people and many countries were coming to the same realisation now. The planning minister has said that contrary to the impression given by news bulletins between 8-9pm, the federal and provincial governments were working together to control the disease. He also thanked doctors, law enforcement agencies, maintenance staff and other frontliners for serving at a time of crisis. Asad Umar has declared that Pakistan will not blindly follow Western countries while briefing the parliament on the government's strategy to cope with the ongoing health crisis. He said that Pakistan had the best doctors and specialists who were advising the government. Umar told the National Assembly that the country's testing capacity had increased over the past months and in the past 24 hours, more than 13,000 tests had been conducted. Initially, he informed the parliament, only two labs in the country that can conduct tests but now there were 70 testing labs. The planning minister once again urged citizens to take precautions in order to curb the spread.