Coronavirus outbreak: PTI takes stock of government's decisions

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday took stock of government's decisions taken to cope up with the current situation in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak and reviewed progress on their implementation.
A meeting of the PTI's core committee held here with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair discussed a strategy to control the spread of the coronavirus in the country. PM Khan directed the participants of the meeting to play their due role in this testing time.
The sources privy to the meeting told Business Recorder that the core committee was briefed on the current economic situation of the country by the federal government's economic team. "They mulled over the government's decisions taken to cope up with the current situation in the aftermath of coronavirus outbreak and reviewed progress on their implementation," they said.
The committee also held a debate on starting work at the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. The prime minister was quoted as saying that work on all the CPEC-related infrastructure and energy projects should resume.
The meeting of the ruling party also discussed the ways to move forward to achieve goals set by the government during the time of the pandemic. The prime minister also directed that transparency in distributing relief goods, saying there should be no compromising in giving relief to people especially daily wage earners.
Stressing the need for striking a balance between the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and providing livelihoods to daily wagers, the prime minister said "how can he ask the people to stay home even if they are hungry".
During the meeting, the prime minister reiterated that the government could not confine 220 million people to their houses through a complete lockdown to arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The chief ministers of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Mehmood Khan, and of Punjab, Usman Buzdar also participated in the meeting through video link from their respective provincial capitals.
The prime minister will visit Lahore on Saturday (today), where Buzdar and Punjab Governor Muhammad Sarwar will brief him about the coronavirus-related issues in he province.