Islamabad: Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Planning & Special Initiatives Asad Umar has shared a screenshot of his twitter account of a recent interview of Barack Obama’s ex-aide on economy Larry Summers with CNN in which the former head of the US economic advisory council has referred to Pakistan as a country that has effectively controlled COVID-19.
Umar in his tweet reproduced the words of the former chief economist of the World Bank and former Chief of Economic Advisory Council of Obama “if the US had handled Covid as well as Pakistan it could have saved 10 trillion dollars.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Aviation Division has constituted a seven-member committee, officials of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Airport Security Force (ASF) and the airlines to ensure implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to prevent the spread of Covid-19 at airports.
The committee has been directed to ensure compliance of SOPs at each airport and take administrative action against the management in case any violations are observed.
Pakistan’s CAA has already fined Pak Rs100,000 (Dh 2,262) on a foreign airliner for violating the health guidelines by taking onboard a passenger who had tested positive for Covid-19.
President Alvi calls for adherence to health protocols
President Arif Alvi has in a tweet urged the Pakistanis to strictly adhere to the health protocols for the next few months and continue wearing masks, maintaining social distance and washing hands frequently.
In a video message that is also shared on the president’s official twitter account, President Alvi said the country had contained the virus to a great extent but had not eliminated it completely that was why constant observance of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) was required.
Pakistan said the president had recorded 6,825 infections on June 14, the highest number of positive cases, which dropped to 185 on Aug 31. The figure has now again crossed the 700 mark, warned the president in his video message.
Pakistan on Monday reported 440 new cases of coronavirus and 5 deaths in a period of 24 hours. With these additions the number of casualties in the country due to coroanvirus has reached 323,452 and deaths 6,659. The total number of recovered cases has also gone beyond 307,000 while the number of tests conducted for coronavirus in a day was 27,091.
