We know, living and death are inseparably intertwined. When a warrior enters the battle field, he is conscious of coming out as victor or perish as martyr. Armies, nations and societies stand together to confront the impending challenge to their existence. Caution is part of the valor. Strategies for containment and mitigation of disaster are devised; resources marshaled; innate spirit of people coming together and fighting together is invigorated; morale is kept high; fear and panic buying discouraged. Commander leads from the front; keeps intact the chain of command and control and is seen moving from front to front to lead, to assess, to guide, to provide, to encourage, to pat, to share – ever willing to remedy wrong moves and ever ready to make changes in the battle strategy. We are faced with a far greater challenge posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The enemy is deadly, ferocious and lethal but not difficult to be defeated – not at all by spirited nations, daring societies and leaders of courage and stellar determination. Wuhan has come out victorious regaining life to sing the songs of spring, of love and of reunion. They lived through a testing ordeal; fought with courage and resilience; never let their morale sink in; never let the depression sag their spirit, their sense of humanism, patriotism, sacrifice, help. They defied all predictions; all mean innuendos and insinuations; displayed the human capacity for wonders raising a huge structure of a big hospital in unbelievably short time and left a blazing trail of empirical methods of containment and mitigation of the disaster through innovative diagnostic practices, surveillance, isolation, social distancing, hygiene and sanitation and lockdown. The commanders were ruthless in enforcing these preventive measures. There was isolation but no loneliness. People from all walks of life had come out to help their fellows in distress. The people in the command and control were alert to the gravity of the situation. Assistance package was rolled out; rations even in the lockdown were amply available and supplied to the senior citizens regularly; no one died of hunger; there was no shortage of essential provisions, sanitisers, soaps, masks. There were no news of hoardings, no scandals of smuggling, no attempts at profiteering; no hike in prices, no unabashed exploitation of the pandemic to make a few extra coins. They stood by their values, by their love for humanity, by their spirit of self sacrifice. Their purpose was to bring out their upper self, to overcome the temptation of selfish interests and focus on the defeat of the deadly enemy. I am sorry to say, we are not people of their capacity, their sense of oneness; we do not have vast resources like them; we are not disciplined like them; we do not have the scruples to stand up as a brave nation and generous people shunning all temptations of taking undue advantage of an unusual situation. The moment we awakened to the impending epidemic putting our acts together, masks, sanitisers, paracitamols started disappearing from the shelves; rumor mongering and panic buying became the fashion of the day; preventive measures like self isolation, social distancing, dining out, avoidance of crowded places, protection of children and elderly from exposure to risk, lockdown of schools, madirassas, mosques and Imambaras, mausoleums came to be ridiculed socially and religiously. Though we started putting our acts together, the explosion of the situation in Iran caught us off guard. We did not know, 7500 pilgrims from all over the country have crossed over to Iran and Iraq and would be returning with infections In our society, religious beliefs and practices take precedence over the universally recognized preventive measures and medical interventions in natural calamity. Friday saw mosques full of devoted Muslims standing and sitting shoulder to shoulder with each other. They used the same rugs for prayers where hundreds might have been prostrating, coughing and sneezing. This has left in limbo the preventive measures of self isolation and social distancing so strenuously publicized by the federal and provincial governments. Had our Prophet (Peace be upon him) not taken strategic measures in his ‘Ghazwas’ against his adversaries? Our spiritual leaders should know, this deadly virus spreads rapidly from person to person. A person affected by it can spread infection among his over 100 fellow brothers. The Ulema should come forward to educate the people about the need for preventive measures. We were quick in finding fault with our leaders accusing them of slow reaction to the epidemic, lack of vision and want of capacity to comprehend the enormity of the challenge. Pakistan is not the only country under attack from the coronavirus. The virus has spread in over 170 countries. Almost all the developed and resourceful countries of the Europe and North America have been enveloped by this epidemic. It has played havoc in some European countries taking thousands of precious lives. Fear and panic has gripped the leaders of those countries. The epidemic was so surreptitious and stealthy causing minimum infections in the first and second weeks and springing to peak in the fourth and fifth week. However, we had enough time and space to react when the pandemic unfolded furiously in Wuhan. Though we started putting our acts together, the explosion of the situation in Iran caught us off guard. We did not know, so many pilgrims (7500) from all over the country have crossed over to Iran and Iraq and would be returning with infections. One is struck with wonder why the federal government did not mobilize resources along with army and National Disaster Management Authority to make full-fledged arrangements for quarantine of the returning devotees at Tafton. The border should have been sealed completely to prevent the entry of the devotees from Turbat and other points. There are credible reports that after the closure of the Tafton, many devotees belong to Balochistan and Sindh entered the country from other points. Now, when we are fighting a full war against the deadly enemy, the federal government should closely coordinate with the provincial governments to defeat the enemy. No war can be won without the unity and support of the nation. Prime Minister Imran Khan should rise to the occasion to lead the nation from the front in this war. The writer was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books