'Lives versus livelihoods?'

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed "Lives versus livelihoods?" carried by the newspaper on Thursday. The writer, Nadeem Javaid, has aptly summarized the situation in a highly impressive manner. According to him, for example, "Regrettably, we wasted a lot of time, first being in a state of denial. Later, when few cases got reported and Sindh imposed lockdown, other provinces pointlessly delayed their decisions. The federal government, instead of playing a decisive role, convoluted the implementation by publically showing soft stance on lockdown as well as poorly managing the borders. But, good news is: time bought through partial lockdown was used to augment some capacity of our health care system. Bad news is: yet we are lacking a persuasive narrative for streamlining the citizen's behaviour to combat this pandemic."

Here I wish to add one key reason that is causing a lot of confusion among people about the lockdown. That the federal and provincial governments, particularly the Sindh government, are not acting in unison is a fact. This is not the right approach to the challenge of coronavirus. The situation demands a unified national effort. It now increasingly appears that prime minister Imran Khan is hardly in favour of a lockdown, whereas Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah, who has lost his brother-in-law to coronavirus, seems to be advocating tightening of lockdown.