ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Asad Umar on Tuesday, while appreciating the masses for promptly responding to the government measures to deal with the coronavirus said the credit for the decline in the Covid-19 cases in Pakistan went to the people of Pakistan.

He said that still the government of Pakistan was not in a position to say that the deadly virus had completely been eradicated from the country.

Following the eruption of Covid-19 in Pakistan a viable plan was devised to deal with the pandemic through contact tracing and they were the "real heroes" whose cooperation with the government had led to the drastic reduction in the infection.

Umar said the government was able to reach 10.8 contact persons through one "index person" (infected individual).

"We are at the level of South Korea on account of contact tracing method," he said, while hailing the effectiveness of the contact-tracing system.

Umar added the government imposed over 2,350 smart lockdowns across the country, which led to decline in the Covid-19 cases.

He said that at present 87 smart lockdowns were in place in the country, while India lockdown entire country for six weeks but could not manage to control the spread of the disease.

"Due to contact tracing strategy we were able to reach people who were at most risk of catching the infection," he said.

"Through this contract tracing system, we were able to trace 1.1 million contacts out of which one million tests were conducted and 10.5 percent was the positivity ratio of those who were tested," Umar explained. The minister said the government reached out to more than 100,000 positive cases through the contact tracing system and was able to let them know that they were infected with the virus.

"Whatever steps taken by the State, the government could not have been effective, if the public had not cooperated with us," he said.

"A large part of the society helped the government. I would like to thank the media as well for sending our message to the public on what to do to ward off the coronavirus," he added.

While comparing the situation with other neighbouring countries, Umar said the positivity rate in Pakistan at present was around three percent, whereas in Iran it is 9.4 percent and 9.8 percent in India, which was almost three times higher.

The positivity rate in Bangladesh is 23-24 percent, which is eight times higher than Pakistan's, he added.

"If we compare deaths over the last 10-12 days according to population, Iran has reported 20 times the number of deaths as Pakistan, while India has recorded around four to five times the number of fatalities," he said.

The minister said the difference was "quite big and increasing with time".

But, he cautioned that Pakistan could go down the same path as its neighbours if people did not take preventive measures.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020