Govt taking ‘anti-corona steps’ seriously: Farukh Habib

ISLAMABAD, May 15 (APP):Parliamentary Secretary for Railways Farukh Habib on Friday said that an extended lockdown due to COVID-19 could impact the economy and would have knock-on effects on poor people’s health and life.

Talking to a private news channel, he said there was a dire need to create a balance between the lockdown and saving vulnerable people from starvation, adding that the shutdown of businesses has caused unbearable losses to the country’s economy as well.

He said that the opposition parties should refrain from politicizing and point-scoring based off of a very serious global pandemic.

The opposition had no programme or agenda against coronavirus rather criticizing government with its non serious irresponsible behaviour, he added.

Regarding availability of ventilators, he said the government is now starting its local production of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits and N95 masks to effectively combat coronavirus and country would be able to manage its demand and supply in wake of prevailing high risk corona situation.

He also mentioned the latest survey , that around 82% people in country are satisfied with the efforts of government during this coronavirus situation.

Replying to a question related to testing capacity, he said the capacity of testing was being increased and more than 3 lakh tests conducted till now.

He explained that coronavirus is the unprecedented situation which is haunting the entire world not only our country and Pakistan being a developing country possesses limited resources cannot fight against COVID-19 all alone for long.

However, the response of the government in present situation is pro-active, he said, adding, there is a need to develop a comprehensive strategy with the mutual consensus of all stakeholders to combat the pandemic.