Daily Times

Since first two coronavirus cases popped up on 26 February in Pakistan, government is struggling to adopt China lockdown model despite its miraculous results in blunting the efficacy of COVID-19.

With few exceptions Pakistan appears to follow Chinese modus operandi but fails to stick to its full-blown anti-virus modalities. In Chinese Lockdown Policy, Chinese political leadership and people are on same page. Initially few lapses ensued but their collective resolve made the turnaround soon. Now Hubei province, once epic center of COVID-19, is out of danger. With zero case registration, it plans to lift lockdown.

In the face of staggering outbreak and fatality, Pakistan national unanimity is in disarray. Oneness on the pandemic is completely missing. Pakistan’s National Action Plan (NAP) rolled out against COVID-19 on Feb 29, but center and provinces’ strategies remain poles apart. Still Political unity through all Parties Conference featuring government and all opposition parties is a far cry.

On the onset, PTI government and Chinese leadership remained like-minded on the issue of not evacuating Pakistani students from Wuhan, once was epic center of COVID-19, and other cities of China. Mutual strategy paid off.

After witnessing horrible surge in Coronavirus cases, Islamabad administration had one option to put provinces in complete quarantine as China did. However, China lockdown model was resisted on the reasons best known to those who are at the helm of affairs. Anyhow taking cognizance of volatile situation, scale of pandemic, spike in cases and people’s defiance, Federal government, provinces, Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan came up with their own versions of lockdown somewhere completely and somewhere partially with deployment of army. Such lockdowns have few resemblances with Chinese lockdown but do not match its elementary benchmarks.

Pakistan, which waited for two and half months to go for lockdowns, eventually started asking people to follow safety SOPs including wearing masks, sanitizing hands, disinfecting homes and venturing out only one among family when direly needed. Government also tightened the regulations on social distancing, remote working, screening, testing by announcing financial and food facilitations to poor and incentives to industry.

As China did, PTI government took steps to minimize the chances of togetherness publically and privately. Appealing everyone to stay home, all most all educational institutions, shopping plazas, tourist places, markets, eateries except takeaways, marriage halls and resorts have been closed.. Religious functions and congregations are requested to be prevented.

However, China Lockdown model and Pakistan Lockdown model have differences in terms of response time, strictness, harshest management and leadership qualities distinguish both iron clad friends and strategic partners.

In spite of global criticism, China dared putting at least 50 million people under mandatory quarantine in Hubei Province to save the rest of world. It asked people in areas near Hubei province to quarantine themselves if they felt ill. It asked people in neighborhoods to monitor the movements of the self-quarantined. It decided to give financial rewards to citizens for reporting those who would fail to follow quarantine orders. It also built 16 hospitals dedicated to COVID-19 treatment, sent health care workers from around the country to Hubei to help care for the sick, launched 1,800 teams to trace confirmed cases, implemented “social distancing” measures throughout the country, which include closing schools, businesses and theaters, and canceling sporting events, tracked people’s movements using mobile phone apps, AliPay, WeChat and others.

China’s military sent hundreds of doctors and nurses to Wuhan – the epic center of the coronavirus outbreak. In the weeks since Jan. 23, when Wuhan, Hubei’s capital city, prohibited anyone from leaving, government officials across the province gradually ramped up efforts to keep residents inside their houses. Apartment compounds allowed people to go in and out through one gate, each household was permitted to only send one person out once every three days to purchase groceries, and everyone’s temperature was checked upon entrance. But as the number of coronavirus cases continued to climb, Hubei officials implemented further hardest policies.

The Hubei government ordered community officials to enforce “the strictest, around-the-clock, closed management” of all residential complexes, banning the private use of cars, forbidding residents from leaving their apartments without permission and requiring purchasers of cold medicine to disclose their temperature, address and identification number at the pharmacy. To further cut down on people’s needs to leave their houses, many community officials bought and delivered groceries and medication for the residents in their jurisdiction.

Many cities utilized a monitoring scheme in which large neighborhoods were changed into smaller grid like units responsible for enforcing regulations

Many cities utilized a monitoring scheme in which large neighborhoods were changed into smaller grid like units responsible for enforcing regulations. Community officials – a mix of paid employees and volunteers, mostly retirees – tightly monitored activity such as going out or visiting other residential complexes. They were allowed to call the local police for backup if anyone used to refuse to cooperate with temperature checks or quarantine orders. These officials, known as grid workers, were supposed to screen each person’s temperature as they would enter the complex. Rural areas, where the population density was usually too low for grid management, had taken a more hands-on approach. Villages near the border with Hubei province or with high numbers of migrant workers voluntarily barricaded themselves to prevent travelers from entering and residents from leaving.

China turned to a number of apps designed to record the whereabouts of millions of travelers. Some cities rolled out their own digital tools: They require passengers to provide their names, phone numbers and traveling history to local authorities before disembarking from trains or planes. In Shanghai, for example, only those who filled out this digital form are allowed to leave the train station or airport.

In order to serve better during critical juncture, testing and treatment were made free. Electricity, wireless and heating services pledged not to cut customers off for non-payment. State industries redirected production toward essential goods and medical supplies. Workers who could did their jobs from home, and service employees were deployed in parallel industries like delivery to keep employment and wages up.

China’s QR health code system made a difference. A color-coded QR code system to fight the coronavirus allowed people to travel freely and forced them to self-quarantine if needed. For instance, the system in Hangzhou assigned residents one of three colored QR codes: Red, yellow or green. Only residents with a green code were allowed to move around the city freely. Those with a yellow code were required to confine themselves at home for a seven-day quarantine. Those with red codes must quarantine for 14 days. Holders of yellow and red codes were required to log in every day during quarantine before their codes could turn green.

Yasir Habib Khan is freelance journalist