ISLAMABAD, Nov 6 (APP): President Dr Arif Alvi Friday while eulogizing the country’s successful fight against COVID-19, advised the people to keep observing the precautions as the disease was not yet completely over.
The president, in an interview with a private television channel (GTV), said Pakistan had successfully tackled COVID-19 through a combination of factors including face masks, frequent hand washing and social distancing.
“The same combination of factors was essential for future too,” he said as the country was witnessing second wave of coronavirus cases.
He said earlier, the tally of cases had been reduced from thousands to just 200 a day across the country which could again be achieved by reverting to the previous practices of face masks, hand washing and maintaining social distance.
Moreover, he said Pakistan was recognized for maintaining balance between lives and livelihood as the government strived to keep up the economic activity.
Even the people as well as the government through its Ehsaas Program supported the people who suffered the adverse financial impact of the pandemic.
Highlighting the priorities on his agenda as head of state, the president said far before COVID-19, he had written to Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) in 2019 to seek Ulema’s role to protect women inheritance right, promote hand washing to prevent communicable disease, tree plantation and discourage the waste of water.
He said during his interaction, he had found Ulema very positive about the women inheritance right, but the challenge was to mend the social behaviour as in some areas, people had adopted the evil of usurping the women rights.
The president said he had suggested the CII to formulate a list of important subjects to make prayer leaders focus their Friday sermons unanimously on single day, to change people’ behaviour on certain issues.
The president called for promoting tele-health to provide urgent medical advice to the women particularly on the disease like depression which had some taboos allied with them.
The president said he would try to achieve the objective of tele-health services and would stand successful too, because the idea of such call centers had already been experimented during the COVID-19.
While advocating the importance of e-governance, the president said it could bring efficiency and transparency in the government by doing away with the usual slackness on part of the officials concerned.
Discussing the political situation, he said the politicians might criticize each other without targeting the national institutions like judiciary and military establishment.
Referring to a statement by former National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq regarding release of captured Indian pilot Abhinandan, the president said it was contemptible and should have been retracted after explanation, though the damage had already been done.
