Daily Times

No matter how much the British lockdown, for the second time, was expected it must still have caused a fair bit of anxiety in the country, especially in the fabled City of London, so called because of its hard-earned and long-held status as the nerve-centre of global high finance. The pound began collapsing on the mere hint of the announcement and broke crucial technical barriers as it collapsed against the US dollar at the end of the last week. Since then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the complete lockdown, of course, so no prizes for guessing which state financial markets are likely to open and then stay in the new week. And it only makes matters worse that this is not merely a precautionary lockdown, but one forced by an out-of-control second wave of the coronavirus so there’s no telling how long it is going to last.

Last time too the British government took too long in shutting down the country and the number of cases sky rocketed as a result. Hopefully now they have timed it better and ordinary people will not have to suffer because the government has developed a habit of staying behind the curve. People will now have to follow all the safety and distancing rules and most likely the vast majority of them will stay safe, but the economy is bound to suffer a very great deal. London was already struggling with a decelerating economy in the midst of a sharp global recession and now growth and employment statistics are going to be even worse. Nobody needs to say much about how that is going to impact the life of the common working man over there.

In UK’s current plight, sad and unfortunate as it is, lie very important lessons for other countries; Pakistan included. The only reason that we have moved from being one of the countries that fought off the first wave the best to be counted among those that are likely to suffer the worst of the second wave is people’s irresponsibility with regard to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). And if people still do not get their act together, we too will be forced to shut down completely once again just like the UK. Surely everybody understands that, considering the size of our economy, we will not be able to come out it as strongly as some other countries. *