Islamabad: A large number of low-income households, particularly those belonging the private sector employees and daily-wage earners, has suffered from the worst economic effects of the pandemic. Joblessness, closure of businesses, layoffs have left a large number of people with little or no means to provide for their livelihoods.
This has been revealed in a recent survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan, according to which around 2.1 million households were forced to sell off their household goods to buy food and to meet other basic needs of life.
Emergency Cash Assistance Programme
The Pakistan government has also launched the Ehsas Emergency Cash Assistance Programme for those affected by the pandemic. So far, 10.26 million families have received a cash assistance of Rs152.75 billion (Dh 3.37 billion).
It has also been revealed that for daily needs and basic necessities of life, around 2.7 million households were dependent upon the government, different charity groups or non-government organisations (NGOs).
28 per cent decline in number of critical patients
Pakistan — with 65 deaths and 2,752 positive cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours — reported a total 246,351 confirmed cases, with 2,156 of those in critical conditions, on Saturday.
Major success
Overall, 5,123 deaths have occurred so far due to coronavirus. According to Asad Umar, the Minister for Special Initiatives and Chairman of the Coronavirus Control Committee, Pakistan has seen a major success in the fight against the virus as patient dependence on ventilators and oxygenated beds dropped to 28 per cent.
In a post he shared on Twitter on Saturday, Asad Umar informed that on June 20, Pakistan had reported 2,969 patients on oxygen support and 546 on ventilators, however, yesterday (Friday) there are 1,762 on oxygenated beds and 394 on ventilators. This means 28 per cent reduction in the number of critical patients.
Lockdown, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and, most importantly, people’s positive response all contributed to this success, says Asad Umar in his post.
Pakistan exporting masks, sanitisers worth millions of rupees
Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s Science & Technology Minister, has announced that the country is exporting face masks and hand sanitisers and earning millions of rupees in foreign exchange.
The S&T Ministry is implementing a number of projects in accordance with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan and it is because of this approach that hand sanitiers and masks, that had gone missing from local markets a few days earlier, are now not only available in abundance, but are also being exported to other countries, Chaudhry tweeted. https://twitter.com/fawadchaudhry/status/1281840026662428672