By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health, Zafar Mirza gave a briefing to the National Coordination Committee on Coronavirus (NCOC) on Sunday while also discussing new strategies to tackle the menace, media reported.
SAPM Mirza in his briefing said that the government was planning on hiring retired government doctors under contract to curb the dearth of doctors and paramedics in the country amidst the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. He also said that dedicated call centres for coronavirus will soon be established in all the provinces to address people’s concerns and answer their questions on the virus. Zafar Mirza also told the NCOC that the province of Sindh and Balochistan were not readu to undertake and impose the idea of a smart lockdown like in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He said that both provincial governments have backed the quarantined isolation method of keeping the effects and spread of the virus minimal. Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar chairing the NCOC session said that the government will ask the business and trading community of Pakistan to help out in implementation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to stay safe and minimize spread of the pathogen. Umar said that the NCOC was simultaneously working on short-term and long-term strategies and methods to deal with the coronavirus and a part of the strategy has been advised to be strict punishments for those that fail to adhere and abide by set SOPs for coronavirus.
