【Text/ Mushahid Hussein Sayyid】
The coronavirus crisis is very special. So far, no country in the world, no expert, knows exactly what happened, what caused the outbreak, and how to control it – with the exception of China, which is an exception. WHO officials have said that we don't expect to develop a vaccine in the short term, we may live with the coronavirus for many years, so this is not a short-term problem.
Currently, the COVID-19 mortality rate is well controlled in Pakistan, at only 2.2 percent, in the United States at 6.8 percent, in India at 3.3 percent, and in the United Kingdom at 14 percent. From this, we can see the differences between the East and the West in their response to the epidemic. The detection rate in Pakistan is only 1.5 per thousand, and in the United States it is 26 per thousand.
We must move beyond the game of finger-pointing, beyond politics, because this is a collective crisis that requires unity among the whole country to face it. There are many cases that are unknown, some patients have symptoms, and some people have no symptoms, but they are virus carriers. Herd immunity has been proposed, a concept that the virus disappears if 70% of people are infected, but it has been shown to be very limited in Sweden.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the medical workers of my country, the doctors, the nurses, the hygienists, the martyrs who have fallen in the fight against the virus. I also wish to pay tribute to the heroic people of Kashmir, today is the 283rd day of the lockdown in Indian-occupied Kashmir, which is a double lockdown, in addition to the lockdown due to the new crown virus, they have experienced the worst lockdown in the history of the civilized world since August 5 last year. The local people have frequently spontaneously revolted, and I would like to pay tribute to the heroic freedom fighters.
Today is such a grave situation that we must collectively meet the challenge. What was tested in the early stages of this crisis? The result? We have to analyze it carefully. It is interesting to note, Mr. President, that I see a change in the global balance of power in the current state of affairs. Look at Asian countries and regions, look at Chinese mainland, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, they are much more efficient and effective in responding to the coronavirus outbreak than those "advanced countries" in the world.
One country stands out in particular, and I would like to thank the entire Senate for taking the initiative to pass a resolution in support of China, which has proven to be Pakistan's all-weather friend, has always stood by Pakistan's side, and they have been very successful.
China assists Pakistan in anti-epidemic materials. Image source: Official website of the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan
How is China doing this? Mr. President, they have taken measures that neither the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy nor the United States have taken. They have decisive national leaders, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, who have decided on the spot, and have not wasted time discussing whether a curfew should be invoked, whether the lockdown should be flexible or strictly enforced, a debate that is like whether a woman is completely pregnant or half pregnant. Instead of tangling, they acted directly. 60 million people were completely locked down for 76 days. Wuhan has a population of 11 million, and the entire Hubei province has a population of about 60 million, and they are completely locked down.
When they faced a shortage of medical resources, they built two hospitals in 12 days, 40,000 workers worked around the clock, and in just 12 days, they built two state-of-the-art hospitals. And then what happened? Staff from all over China came to support, and a total of 42,000 doctors, nurses, experts, technicians and volunteers gathered in Hubei Province. They use smart technology to distinguish (people) with a mobile phone health code, red means you have a high risk of infection, green means safe, and yellow means you need to be tested. They then conducted free, comprehensive, large-scale testing across the country.
In the early days of the outbreak, some speculated that China's infected population could reach 500 million, and now they have successfully controlled the number of infected people to only 82,000 cases, of which 78,000 have been cured and about 4,000 cases have died. South Korea has taken the same approach, and case control is relatively good. So if we compare Asia with the West, it is clear that Asia has far outperformed the West in this outbreak, reflecting the change in the global balance of power led by China.
Secondly, I think it is also a failure of capitalism. Capitalism has always told us that the market can do this and that, but the free-market economy has failed in providing health care for the people. Now doctors in the West are playing the role of God, and they can decide to save this person or not, and thankfully such a phenomenon has not yet occurred in our country.
Look at this phenomenon, the income gap has become huge, with the richest 1% of the population having more wealth than the 99% of the population. The wealth of 80 billionaires is more than half of the world's population, or 3.5 billion poor people. I'm sorry here I also want to condemn our own big businessmen, look at the rich people in other countries, China's Ma Yun, India's Ambani, the United States Bill Gates have all contributed to the fight against the epidemic, what have our rich people done? They are sorry for the people of Pakistan and have not made their due contribution.
This is also an important lesson for us, don't be too busy throwing the pot as soon as we fail. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi blames Muslims for creating fears of the virus, saying they are terrorists spreading the virus; Trump has also wrongly blamed China for the coronavirus problem to cover up his own defeat because he wants to use the coronavirus to attack China to win the election. So I'm very happy that the Senate was able to unanimously pass a resolution today condemning stigmatization against China, because China stands with us in our very difficult times.
What should my Government do next and what policies should it develop? We must learn to move forward, pay attention to the message transmitted by the government, whether it is chaotic or clear, this is the core problem. As a former journalist and information minister, I would like to suggest that we should send a clear message. What is this message? That is: the magnitude of this crisis transcends that of any individual, political party, leader, government, and institution, and we must work together to address it.
Every crisis is an opportunity to move forward, and I think the government should take some steps to declare the country in a state of health emergency until the end of this year. Our problem is not a shortage of ventilators, but an under-detection. We should spend money on mandatory free testing. Second, we should stop the political struggle.
We want to redefine national security, which used to be military strength, and now we have to think about the safety of the people, the security of the Pakistanis. We have bombs, missiles, planes, but we need to reallocate funds to benefit the people, because health care and education have not been given the attention they deserve, and we are responsible for that.
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