DISCUSSION:
An ongoing study by Roser, Ritchie and Ortiz-Ospina (2020) on Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – Statistics and Research, is currently sharing and comparing updated global data, from the database of European Center of Disease Control (CDC). Following is the comparison of COVID -19 situation among China, USA and Pakistan, during the time period of December 31’2019 to March 30’2020. China Reported its first COVID-19 case in December’2020, while USA had its first confirm case on January 202020, and Pakistan had its first case almost a month after USA on February 26’2020, despite sharing a border, CPEC and extensive trade with China. As of April 15,’2020, China after experiencing its peak in the month of February’2020 is now on decline. The cumulative statistics of China are 83,745 confirmed cases and 3,352 deaths. USA on the other hand is currently headed towards it peak, almost two month later after its first reported case. On April 15’2020, USA is the most affected country in the world with 578,268 confirmed cases and 23,476 deaths. Pakistan shows the least spread of COVID-19 among the three countries. Pakistan has had 5,988 confirmed cases and 107 deaths after almost 50 days of its first reported case, which is still far less than what was predicted by Rizvi and Zahid (2020) on March 16’2020 (World Health Organization COVID-19 Dashboard, n.d.).
But, is the situation still as safe as it has been? Will COVID-19 growth rate reduce or stay the same in Pakistan in future as well? Is the country prepared if the situation changes for worse? These are the questions we intend to bring to highlight in this article.
With in a week, with the compound growth rate of 17.3% of COVID-19, the per day cases of Pakistan has jumped from 250 to 520 on April 16’2020, while total number of lab tested positive cases has gone from 4072 to 7025. (Pak Wired, n.d.). The rate of COVID-19 growth as of today is rather faster and higher than we originally predicted in Table - 3 above, based on the data collected from February 26’2020 to April 3’2020. With recent rapid increase in growth of COVID-19, the cases by the end of April’2020 can go much higher than our initial prediction of 8,000, which can pose a great threat and challenge for the governing bodies in Pakistan.
While, on April 14’ 2020, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has also announced to open skilled labour industry along with CPEC and construction industry, which will loosen the lock down and the protective effect of social distancing against COVID-19. Succumbing to economic pressure the traders association in Karachi, has also announced to reopen the businesses in three out of four provinces, Sindh, southwestern Baluchistan, and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on the same day (Anadolu Agency, 2020). Later in the day, the religious relics also announced to open the places of worship for five daily congregational prayers, as well as extra congregational prayers during the holy month of Ramadan while observing preventive protocols (Gulf News, 2020). With the current state of affairs of the country, and our COVID-19 forecast of 8,000 cases by the end of April’2020, the situation looks grave for the country. With loosened lock down and social distancing, while increasing growth rate of COVID-19 cases, there is a danger of an exponential growth in the COVID-19 cases in Pakistan.
WHO representative on March 14’ 2020 declared the response of Pakistan as one of the best national responses. However, total foreign transmission of COVID-19 in Pakistan estimates about 46.6%, which goes to show that Pakistan’s border prevention strategy could have been improved and still needs to be revisited for future course. On the other hand, local transmission of COVID-19 accounts for 53.4% after a month of lock down in the country (Pak Wired, n.d.). The question that whether the reason of this relatively slower spread is only due to timely, efficient measures, or are there other factors involved, has yet to be answered. The role of other factors like, increased ratio of younger population, better immune status, warm climate (Accuweather, 2020) or under testing has been associated with slow spread COVID-19. Pakistan is a country of warm climate, and under reporting of COVID-19 is being brought to attention (The Express Tribune, 2020), however, contrary to many other countries COVID-19 in Pakistan is being reported more in the younger age group (Health Advisory Platform by Ministry of National Health Services Regulations and Coordination, 2020) Hence, it is important to further investigate the effect of these factors on epidemiological spread of COVID-19.
Hence, considering exponential growth of COVID -19 cases, along with recent economic decisions made to loosen the lock down, Pakistan seems to be at the verge of facing a COVID-19 outbreak challenge for which it does not appear to be prepared. So, through this study we aim to draw the attention of both national as well international governing bodies, administrators and researchers towards the re-evaluation and re-orientation of the current implemented COVID-19 prevention strategies, as well as preparedness of the country for a potential future health crisis.