The pandemic of coronavirus is not over yet. It keeps resurrecting its head time and again. The coronavirus strain behind Covid-19 was first detected in China in December 2019 and then started spreading to other countries. The strain of the Covid-19 virus was so tiny that it was not visible to the naked eye yet it changed the world a lot.
aap hī aap diye bujhte chale jaate haiñ
aur aaseb dikhā.ī bhī nahīñ detā hai
COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and small airborne particles containing the virus. The fear of the virus was so impactful that it compelled nations to plan specifications for travel, economy, and industry. The pandemic disrupted everything like never before.
har ek jism meñ maujūd hasht-pā kī tarah
vabā kā ḳhauf hai ḳhud bhī kisī vabā kī tarah
Covid-19 cost much to the life and economy. It compelled nations to go for lockdowns, shut the transportation, contact tracing of the infected individuals, quarantine those arriving in the country, vaccination campaigns, daily covid-19 updates, and reports to keep the citizens informed. Pakistan was not an exception to Covid-19. The country reported its first-ever case of Covid-19 in the last week of February 2020.
After many Covid-19 cases, Pakistan closed its borders and took a number of steps to stop the transmission. The lockdown in the country was announced on March 16, 2020. Since the start of the pandemic, Pakistan has witnessed five waves.
Pakistan, like other countries, tried hard to deal with the pandemic. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, city administration, locals, expatriates, foreign aides, and government; all contributed to the covid-19 response efforts. One similar initiative was National Command and Control Center – NCOC.
The NCOC was established on March 27, 2020. It has a major role to keep the nation updated on the Covid-19 related figures. The NCOC used to hold daily meetings, which were attended by Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, SAPM on Health Dr. Faisal Sultan, and National Coordinator Major General Muhammad Zafar Iqbal. Moreover, it had the representation of all the provinces and administrative units. The NCOC data was shared every eight hours to keep the public informed.
The forum kept the nation updated on the death toll, recoveries, number of vaccination, etc as it held meetings on a daily basis, with ex-minister for special initiatives Asad Umar and NCOC national coordinator in the chair. PM’s aide on health Dr. Faisal Sultan and representatives of all the provinces and administrative units used to attend the meetings.
It is pertinent to mention that the NCOC and Pakistan’s Covid-19 pandemic response has been lauded since the day the virus was first reported in the country. NCOC ran about 40 campaigns and its efforts were appreciated by Bill Gates, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and a number of other organizations.
Earlier, a report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) placed Pakistan among the countries that have done fairly well in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, the World Health Organisation commented that Pakistan was among countries from whom the international community should learn how to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lauded Pakistan’s efforts and uttered that Pakistan deployed the infrastructure built up over many years for polio to combat Covid-19. “Community health workers who have been trained to go door-to-door vaccinating children for polio have been utilized for surveillance, contact tracing, and care.”
Hence, NCOC has been in charge of Pakistan’s COVID-19 efforts, policies, and implementation. It made suggestions to the Prime Minister’s National Coordination Committee for timely actions related to the national COVID-19 response.
The forum kept the nation updated on the death toll, recoveries, number of vaccination, etc as it held meetings on a daily basis, with ex-minister for special initiatives Asad Umar and NCOC national coordinator in the chair. PM’s aide on health Dr. Faisal Sultan and representatives of all the provinces and administrative units used to attend the meetings.
However, NCOC stopped functioning at the end of March after running operations for two years and leading Pakistan’s response to COVID-19, while all its roles were handed over to the National Institute of Health (NIH).
As of now, National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) for Covid-19 has been reconstituted at the National Institute of Health (NIH) under the prime minister’s direction. The forum will extend its operations for prevention, detection, surveillance, and response to public health emergencies at the national level as well as facilitate coordination with all provinces and regions.
As of February 2022, National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) announced that 60 percent of the eligible population in the country has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
In short, Pakistan’s response to covid-19 has been quite satisfactory when compared to the intensity of the overall pandemic in other countries of the world. There have been 1,536,479 infections and 30,395 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country as of today. While in India, the Indian government puts its death toll for the January 2020-December 2021 period as about 480,000.
But the recent report by World Health Organization (WHO) says that 4.7 million people died of COVID-19 in India alone between May and June 2021 – nearly ten times the official toll. This would make India the country with the highest number of pandemic deaths in the world by far. The World’s most sophisticated country – The United States of America – suffered greater damage due to Covid-19 Pandemic and lost more than a million lives.
It was not easy to bell the cat when it comes to the Covid-19 Pandemic. But the collaborated efforts of the military and civilian leadership in the country with the help of the country’s people and healthcare institutions has done a great job and saved millions from death and despair.
nahīñ hai nā-umīd ‘iqbāl’ apnī kisht-e-vīrāñ se
zarā nam ho to ye miTTī bahut zarḳhez hai saaqī
