Pak Minister claims New York will follow 'smart lockdown' concept introduced by Imran Khan

Pakistan Communications Minister Murad Saeed on Monday purported that New York was planning to follow the concept of 'smart lockdown' that Pakistan had introduced to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. A leading Pakistan daily reported Murad Saeed's statements on the floor of the National Assembly in Pakistan where the Communications Minister laughably touted that the New York Governor had decided to implement the 'smart lockdown' concept introduced by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.

While the Imran Khan-led government makes such claims, it has been under constant fire by Pakistan's Opposition parties who have accused his government of 'mishandling' the coronavirus crisis. 

During the same National Assembly session, Imran Khan was under fire by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former defence minister Khawaja Asif who attacked the government's handling of the COVID crisis calling them 'confused.'

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"The current situation that we are in is due to the approximately two months-long negligence showed by the government. When we had fewer deaths, the entire country was completely shut down. Now that we are seeing a dangerous spike in cases, they are easing lockdown restrictions," he said.

He also lashed out at the government's inability to increase testing capacity. "Two weeks ago, we were told that our testing capacity will be increased to 50,000. But now we are being told that it is only 20,000,” he said.

As Pakistan begins to ease its month-long lockdown, the number of Coronavirus cases in the country spiked to almost 2000 cases in a single day taking the total number of infections to over 31,000.

(With Agency Inputs)

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