Pak PM Hints At Imposing Complete Lockdown In Coronavirus-Hit Cities

Mumbai: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday indicated that the government might go for a complete lockdown in coronavirus hit cities and stressed the need for smooth supplies of food items during the lockdown.

“The prime minister has directed that food supplies should be improved if we go for complete lockdown,” said federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in a press conference after a weekly cabinet meeting.

In the cabinet meeting, presided by Prime Minister Khan, decided that Iran would be asked to export oxygen to Pakistan for Covid-19 patients on a humanitarian basis by relaxing the ban the neighbouring country had imposed on oxygen export due to the alarming situation of Covid19 it was facing.

However, a cabinet member told Dawn that the government feared that it would have to impose complete lockdown if the intensity of spread of coronavirus increased by 14 per cent and above.

According to the member, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi asked Imran Khan to take measures to convince Iran to lift the ban on oxygen export to the extent of supplying it to Pakistan, adding that the government was also considering the import of oxygen from China.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s total cases of COVID-19 infection have already crossed the 800,000-mark and the death toll from the coronavirus has reached 17,530. In the last 24 hours, Pakistan has reported 201 more COVID deaths, the highest number in a single day since the pandemic broke out in the country last year.

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