Lockdown ineffective due to mixed signals from Centre, alleges Murad Ali Shah
Statesman Report
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Monday said that the reason a lockdown has not been effective in curbing the spread of the coronavirus is due to “mixed signals” from the federal government.
Speaking at a press conference in Karachi, the chief minister lamented the fact that despite his repeated warnings, there has been a lot of back and forth from the Centre on how to effectively tackle the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is not a provincial or a personal matter — I want to say this very clearly. We cannot make decisions in isolation because their consequences affect everybody.”
Shah held the presser hours ahead of the National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, to take policy decisions for containment measures post-April 14.
During Monday’s press conference, Shah maintained that the only way to effectively deal with the pandemic was to learn from the experiences of other countries around the world.
“That’s what we did in Sindh, and we have been blamed for enforcing a lockdown without giving it much prior thought. There is no correct way to tackle the pandemic. But, the only way to do so is by taking action,” he said.
Shah was addressing rifts between the federal and Sindh governments which came to the fore on Sunday after Federal Minister Faisal Vawda had accused the PPP government of being “inefficient” and failing to contain the spread of the virus.