Daily Times

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Thursday said “we will take decisions ourselves” if the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) does not take decisions on further tightening coronavirus restrictions, especially a two-week ban on inter-city transport.

Speaking during an event here at Karachi’s Sindh Institute of Animal Health, CM Shah referring to reports that Prime Minister Imran Khan had rejected the Sindh government’s suggestion for a complete lockdown, Shah said the premier “has his own stance”.

“I reminded him (Prime Minister Imran) that one year ago, the Sindh government had taken the initiative for which we had to listen to a lot [of criticism]. If it was such a bad idea, why did the other three provinces and Centre follow it?” he questioned.

It wasn’t bad because we are safe today — firstly, due to God’s mercy — and those were the initial steps, the CM added. “The decisions we made in the beginning helped us stay safe from the coronavirus pandemic.”

The Sindh chief minister underlined that the PPP-led provincial government had recommended shutting down intercity transport for at least two weeks — which, according to him, Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar assured him that it would be considered.

Shah said PM Imran Khan “spoke time and again about how India imposed a curfew and shut down everything and how it was wrong but India had not imposed a curfew”.

“The Indian [government’s] mistake was that it did tell people to return to their homes but hundreds of thousands of people took trains, buses, and public transport to return to their villages and they interacted there and went on to infect their villages.

“We remained safe because we said we need to shut down trains and air travel and now, too, I have given the same recommendation which at the moment hasn’t been rejected but the NCOC said it would consider it. However, if NCOC doesn’t take these steps, we’ll take them ourselves,” he stressed.

Speaking of the coronavirus vaccination campaign, Shah said it should be accelerated and that people of all ages must be registered. “My second advice was that we’re registering people for vaccination but in the region — no, in the entire world — our country is the lowest in terms of vaccination.

“Bangladesh, Afghanistan, India are all ahead of us … they’re not adequate but they’re 10 times better than us in vaccination, so I advised we need to make our vaccination drive more aggressive,” he added.

The chief minister recommended the government register everyone so that the demand could be gauged.

“I have asked them to make our vaccination campaign more aggressive,” he said, adding that the NCOC “appreciated” the recommendation and said it would consider it.

Shah said there were areas in the country that had a positivity rate of 25 per cent while in other areas, the positivity rate was lower than 1pc. “If people gather [in areas with low positivity rates], it will not spread as much,” he added. However, inter-city travel could worsen the situation, Shah said.