By: AswathyP
Pakistan’s top opposition leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has accused the government of lowering the testing capacity for COVID-19 to give the impression that the number of cases is going down in the country due to the smart lockdown policies of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Bilawal told a press conference here that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government led by Khan has put the lives of people in danger by lowering the COVID-19 testing capacity.
“They make a mockery of themselves by claiming that the graph of coronavirus cases is going down in the country,” he said.
Since March, Pakistan has reported 2,50,066 positive COVID-19 cases and 5,366 deaths due to the disease, but also claims that 1,70,656 patients have recovered.
The Southern Sindh province, which is ruled by Bilawal”s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has reported the highest number of confirmed cases at 1,07,773.
Khan has angered some of the opposition parties in Parliament, including the PPP, by not supporting their calls for a complete lockdown to arrest the spread of the disease. Instead, he has pushed for smart lockdowns in identified danger areas, insisting that the country cannot economically afford to go without businesses operating with proper SOPs.
The prime minister has also hyped up the factor that poor people cannot afford to remain in a lockdown as they would die of hunger, if not from the virus.
“If you stop testing, the graph will (obviously) go down. But the same number of people will fall ill and die,” Bilawal said.
“They are risking the lives and health of people by their policies. They are lowering the testing capacity. This is a conspiracy against the people, they are not fooling anyone,” he added.
Bilawal claimed that Sindh is still conducting the highest number of COVID-19 tests per capita and has the maximum number of intensive care unit (ICU) and high dependency unit (HDU) beds per capita.
