Six months after the coronavirus arrived in Pakistan, the country appears to have dodged the worst of the pandemic, baffling health experts.
A health official takes a swab sample from a woman to test for the Covid-19 coronavirus at a testing site in Karachi.Neighbouring country India has posted coronavirus infection records.Six months after the coronavirus arrived in Pakistan, the country appears to have dodged the worst of the pandemic, baffling health experts and dampening fears its crowded urban areas and ramshackle hospitals will be overrun.
"No one has been able to explain this decline... We don't have any concrete explanation," said Salman Haseeb, a doctor at Services Hospital in the eastern city of Lahore.Pakistanis have proposed numerous hypotheses for their country's seeming ability to weather the pandemic, crediting everything from the young population and the hot and humid climate to unproven claims of natural immunity.
To date, the South Asian nation has confirmed more than 295 000 infections and currently is recording a few hundred new cases per day. "The situation is now under control and the number of coronavirus cases is dropping, the wards are emptying. It's hard to know why."A flattening curve is all the more curious considering how the coronavirus has hit India, which with a median age of 26 and crowded cities has a somewhat similar demographic.
Since recording its first case in late February, Pakistan has responded in fits and bursts to the pandemic, rolling out loose lockdowns that were later reversed, while crowds shunned social distancing guidelines and continued to flock to markets and mosques. Restaurants and parks have reopened while people have flocked to theatres, malls, and crowded back onto public transport. Schools and universities are set to reopen later in September.
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