Danger of COVID is higher than ever: Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar Saturday once again warned the nation to be careful during Eid holidays the danger of the COVID pandemic was higher than ever.

“The need for caution is clear. The danger is higher than ever and knocking at our doors,” he said in a series of his tweets.

He stressed the need to get united in response to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) issued by the government and achieve once again what “we achieved in the first wave, for which we received global praise”.

“Inshallah we will do it again, together,” he added.

Asad Umar who is also chief of National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said the government realized that the mobility restrictions put into place from today till the 16th of May were going to cause inconvenience.

“These measures have been necessitated by the extremely dangerous situation which has been created in the region with the spread of virulent mutations of the virus,” he added.

He said the unfortunate catastrophe unfolding in India had grabbed global headlines.

“Yesterday there were more than 4 lakh cases in India with 4,194 deaths.”

The minister noted that hospital systems have been overwhelmed and oxygen supply run out in many places in India.

Similarly, eh said Iran saw a sharp increase in cases in the same time period with active cases growing two and a half fold and daily deaths exceeding 400 in a day in a country with population less than half of Pakistan.

Even a small country like Nepal saw an exponential rise in cases going up above 7000 daily.

Asad said deaths also rose sharply.

“You can see the entire region is exploding with cases and deaths, in the latest Covid wave. We have alhamdullillah been spared the worst by timely decisions,” he added.