Daily Times

Arguably, it is a sane decision to close educational institutions from November 26 to avert the virus threat. Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood announced the decision after the meeting of education ministers from the provinces which reviewed data on the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. Though not a perfect solution, the education minister said students would continue their education at home. Technology has given better options for self-directed learning and guided online learning, but Pakistan is not fully equipped with internet supply. “Where possible, homework will be given online. Where this is not possible, the provincial governments will decide the course of action. But all efforts will be made to make sure that education continues from home,” said Mahmood.

Also, Prime Minister Imran Khan has started giving a second thought to the second wave of COVID-19 and has suggested a complete lockdown on major cities and sectors if the opposition continues with its rallies and the public at large does not follow SOPs. The public as well as the opposition should listen to the prime minister as data stands by him. Just on Sunday, the country saw the highest number of positive cases in the last four months with 2,665 people tested positive for the virus while 59 people died from the complications arising from coronavirus. He took to Twitter putting in data on Pakistan’s second COVID 19 spike saying “Increase in Covid patients on ventilators in last 15 days: Peshawar 200%, Multan 200%, Karachi 148%, Lahore 114%, Islamabad 65%. Multan & Isb Covid ventilators capacity utilisation 70%”.  In the same breath, the prime minister said that “.. across the world there is a second spike & complete lockdowns in most countries. In Pak, the PDM by continuing with jalsas is deliberately endangering lives & livelihoods because if cases continue to rise at the rate we are seeing, we will be compelled to go into complete lockdown & PDM will be responsible for consequences”.  Then he returned to his usual refrain that the PDM movement was only meant to get an NRO but “they can hold a million jalsas but will not get any NRO. I do not want to take measures like a lockdown that will start hurting our economy which at the moment is showing signs of a robust recovery. Unfortunately, the Opposition’s only goal is NRO at whatever cost to the lives of people & the country’s economy”.

Well, Mr Prime Minister you may deny an NRO to the opposition, but you will have to take effective measures to save the country from the virus. *