KARACHI: In a statement on Thursday, Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah scothched rumours that there would be any partial easing or end of the lockdown in the province in place to control the spread of Covid-19.

The government move was apparently made in reaction to fervent media speculation doing the rounds since Wednesday that the lockdown in Sindh was about to be eased.

Moreover, a notification issued earlier by the Sindh home department clearly stated that restrictions on movement and opening of commercial establishments would be in place “till end of Ramazan”.

Nasir Hussain Shah said that no decision to end the lockdown was under consideration so far because the health and lives of people were of first and foremost importance for the Sindh government.

The provincial information minister said that everyone should know that coronavirus was a reality, and everyone of us had to avoid everything that could be the possible cause of its spread.

Since no vaccine has been invented so far, the only way to prevent the spread of the contagion is not to go out of homes unnecessarily and be as careful as much as possible, he added.

Mr Shah said that the Sindh government was well aware of difficulties of the business community and it was trying to open businesses gradually after devising standard operating procedures.

The provincial information minister added that the Sindh government was in constant contact with representatives of the business community and was trying to resolve their issues as soon as possible.

‘Experts declared test kits substandard’

He added that it was medical experts, not the Sindh government, who declared the coronavirus test kits provided to the Sindh government ‘substandard’.

He said these test kits were not generating accurate results.

When the test kits would not give the correct result, how would it be exactly known how far coronavirus had spread or what should be the treatment of a patient, Mr Shah added.

The Sindh information minister said that the same substandard test kits were also provided to the Punjab government and therefore they had reservations about coronavirus tests conducted in Punjab.

He said that from the very first day when the first case of coronavirus emerged, every good step taken by the Sindh government to control the virus was first criticised, but ironically later on exactly the same steps were adopted by all other provinces.

Nasir Shah said that from the very beginning the Sindh government had been requesting the federal government to formulate a joint strategy because the Sindh government believed that a complete elimination of pandemic was only possible through cooperating with each other and taking precautionary measures according to standards set by the World Health Organisation.

The minister lamented that what the Sindh government had said about the pandemic was not taken seriously at all. The situation could have been different today, if the opinion of the Sindh government had been taken seriously, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2020