Lockdown 2021 Diaries: 3rd Day – No Respite to Public

It seems the provincial government has further tightened the lockdown restrictions as the main departmental stores in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Gulshan-e-Iqbal Karachi remained shut down on 3rd day of the partial lockdown in Sindh.

Even one of the major cash-and-carry -cum- departmental store Metro remained closed down despite the fact it remained open during the first complete lockdown in 2020. The security guards posted outside Metro said it will remain closed till the end of the lockdown.

Only Street grocery stores, bakeries and medical stores are opened. Those medical stores, which are also selling grocery or general items have closed that section with curtains. For example, the famous Seven86 medicos at Jauhar Chowrangi is opened but it is selling only medicines. 

Due to the closure of the major stores, where a majority of people do shopping due to discounted rates, families feel frustrated in these localities.

Despite the announcement of 11 new round-the-clock vaccination centres in the metropolis, a large number of people were visiting the Expo Centre’s largest vaccination point in the city. Today the government has deployed Rangers and Army personnel to discipline the long queues at Expo Centre. According to reports, a similar rush is witnessed on other major vaccination centres including JPMC, Civil Hospital and Khalid Dina Hall in district South. Meanwhile, the traders’ bodies demanded the government to set up vaccination centres in major shopping points in the city.

The federal government-run National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) after a weekly meeting in Islamabad on Monday announced further restrictions for other cities of the country including, early closure of markets, resumption of 50 per cent work-from-home policy in government and private offices, operation of public transport with 50 per cent occupancy, two-day holidays in a week, restriction of indoor dining and marriage halls etc.

Sindh reported 1,847 new COVID-19 cases during the last 24 hours (down from 2,549 yesterday). Moreover, 36 deaths were reported by bringing the total deaths to 6,057. In Sindh, a total of 13,107 Covid-19 tests were conducted in the province.

Meanwhile, the district administration in Hyderabad has started a survey of vaccinated people in the district to ascertain the vaccination situation.

 

Lockdown 2021 Diaries: 2nd Day - Further Relaxation

Despite being a weekly holiday, Sunday remained quite calm as people remained at home on the second day of the 10-day COVID-19-related partial lockdown in Sindh. All markets remain closed on Sundays and only weekly make-shift bazaars are organized on weekends in different parts of the city. Those Bachat Bazaars were not organized this Sunday.

There were reports of heavy rush at the Karachi’s Expo Centre’s vaccination centre since morning, however, it remained operational throughout the day without any intervals. No untoward incident happened in this round-the-clock largest COVID-19 vaccination centre in Karachi.

The provincial government announced to open 11 more round-the-clock vaccination centres in the government hospitals in six districts of Karachi. These centres would be located at Dow Ojha Hospital in the East district; Khaliqdina Hall, JPMC and Lyari General Hospital in the South district; Children Hospital, SG Hospital New Karachi, SG Hospital Liaquatabad in the Central District; Sindh Government Qatar Hospital in the West district; SG Hospital Murad Memon Goth in Malir district; and SG Hospital Saudabad in Korangi district.

Keeping in view the traditional inefficiency of the provincial government’s machinery, it is really hard to believe that these new 24/7 centres would be functional from the first day for 24-hour service. Except for Expo Centre, the other government-run vaccination centres in the city often function between 9 am to 5 pm on weekdays. According to a report, the government is setting up new counters at NED University’s grounds. The mobile vaccination vans are also been sent to different localities in the city.

The poor performance of the health authorities in Sindh can be gauged from the fact that it has recently established a state-of-the-art new COVID-19 isolation/treatment centre at KMC’s Abbasi Shaheed Hospital in Nazimabad, but its healthcare staff including doctors held a protest demonstration against the non-availability of PPEs and other facilities to them. Karachi’s Administrator had recently inaugurated the intensive care centre.

Pl. click to watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ocJRtY7_k

The federal government continued its criticism of the Sindh government’s decision of imposing partial lockdown on the entire province instead of clamping smart lockdowns in selected areas. The Prime Minister in his public address on phone also criticized the provincial government’s decision. “We had a small problem between the federal government and Sindh,” the PM admitted. “Sindh government wanted to impose a lockdown, which is the correct decision and will curb the spread of the virus. But on the other hand, the thing to see is that will we be able to save the economy from the lockdown? Then there is the issue of hunger … the daily wage earners and especially the poor section of our society … how will they make ends meet during the lockdown?”

A high-level meeting of NCOC would be held in Islamabad on Monday to further discuss the pandemic situation.

According to daily statistics of the National Command Operation Centre, 62 people lost their lives in Pakistan during 24 hours on Sunday with 5,026 new cases in the country. Sindh has reported 2,549 new coronavirus cases; 20 more people lost their lives, with the death toll rising to 6,021 in the province.

A total of 18,618 Covid-19 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, while 368 more patients recovered from the disease.

Feature photo: Courtesy dawn.com website (Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1638177/pakistan-reports-more-than-5000-daily-cases-for-first-time-since-april)

Lockdown 2021 Diaries: First Day of chaos

The first day of the “partial lockdown” in Sindh was a panic day at least in Karachi. There was a hue and cry of businessmen in the media on the closure of markets and non-export industries and those still un-vaccinated people had thronged to vaccination centres to get their jabs to avoid any harassment by police for not producing vaccination cards.

Incidentally, there was the 2nd jab date for my son so we have to go to the Arts Council vaccination centre for the vaccination. At Rashid Minhas Road and then Shara-e-Faisal, there was normal-day traffic and jams at one or two places as usual and we were asking each other where these people were going in cars and motorcycles as offices and markets are closed. At least at 2 places, the police had erected barricades, which caused jams and slowdown of the traffic at Shara-e-Faisal.  

Outside Arts Council, we realized that there would be a rush inside as a large number of cars were parked outside the building. And that was the fact. An unusual number of people were standing in queues at the registration desks on the terrace.

Thank God, due to a better arrangement by the management of the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, we went through the entire process and came out within one and a half hours.

But the situation at the largest vaccination centre of the city, Expo Centre was even worse. The media reported a large number of people had gathered there to get themselves vaccinated since early in the morning and due to the rush some people had broken the entry glass door, therefore, the vaccination process was stopped for many hours. There was also a report of a strike by the staff as they were not paid salaries for many months. I received a live report from Expo Centre as a brother of mine also went to get his first job and was standing outside the main hall in s long queue.

There was a report in the media that the government’s computer system to record the vaccination has also crashed due to heavy rush.

Even though the government had allowed the opening of grocery shops, police forcibly closed down major departmental stores in my area (Gulistan-e-Jauhar). I was buying some groceries at Al-Jadeed departmental store at main University Road, and the management suddenly started making announcements to vacate the store as soon as possible. The entry and exit gate shutters were pulled down in a panic as a Police officer at a petrol van told me that there was a violation of SPOs in the store so the Assistant Commissioner ordered to close it down. Two other major stores in the area – Bin Hashim and Bin Safeer were also closed down in the afternoon (much before 6 pm).

Sindh government on Friday (July 30) announced a “partial lockdown” in the entire province effective from July 31 till August 9 as COVID-19 cases have shot up to around 30% in a single day in Karachi city alone. Export-related manufacturing industries, medical stores, bakeries and grocery shops were allowed to open in specified times. Later, the provincial government amended the notification twice and announced further relaxed conditions like it allowed inter-provincial transport movement and plying of rickshaws and other passenger transport within the city limits by following standard operating procedures (SOPs). It also lifted a ban on pillion riding on motorcycles. 

Local businessmen’s bodies, the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Anjuman-e-Tajran rejected the closure of the business. Even the federal government and its ruling party Pakistan Tahrik-e-Insaf severely criticised the Sindh government for closing down the businesses to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Sindh, especially in Karachi.

Sindh government spokesman Murtaza Wahab and later PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari censured the federal government for its unrealistic criticism of the Sindh government on COVID-19 lockdown.

Federal government ministers Asad Umer, Fawad Chaudhry and Shaikh Rasheed opposed the lockdown and Asad Umer said the lockdown in India has pushed the economy of India on a backtrack and even it went down by 7% and still has not recovered. So the only solution is a smart lockdown. They said instead the provincial government had to focus on the implementation of SOPs. On the other hand, the Sindh government said it had no option but to impose restrictions to control the spread of the pandemic variant Delta. Murtaza Wahab emphasized the need for continuous engagement in dialogue with the federal government