The aftermath of COVID-19
Last year in 2020, the Covid-19 had taken the entire world up in a storm, bending the world economies to its knees, paving the way for a worldwide pandemic which still hasn’t seized to exist.
Pakistan had also faced its calamity, and has had the highest death tolls in history. There were news of thousands of deaths taking place because of the virus throughout the country. And because it was a novel virus against which humans had no immunity, it kept getting out of control, and it took time for people to figure out what was happening and how it was spreading; and then some more time to find out how to combat the symptoms and how to boost the human immunity system.
The time it took for us to figure out what was happening in the middle of all the chaos, was all the time it took to claim countless lives.
News related to Covid-19 statistics kept popping up. Good news was that more people were recovering from it than those who were dying.
Steps taken toward recovery from COVID-19
Pakistan was one of the first countries to impose a nationwide smart lockdown, which helped it gain some control over the pandemic situation in the country. The current government imposed strict lockdown in areas most affected by the virus, and encouraged people to self-isolate themselves inside their own homes instead of crowding the hospitals which was reserved for patients with very serious conditions, and those who were on ventilators and life support. This way the doctors were also able to focus on high-priority cases, meanwhile the Covid-19 Rapid Response Team (RRT) took care of the rest of the situation. The RRT was an emergency response strategy initiative by the government that helped in detecting the virus in patients before it became too serious, and offered relevant guidance.
Post-Pandemic effects on the Pakistani Economy
During the times when strict lockdowns were imposed nationwide, schools and offices had to switch to full-time home-based online work and study programs for professionals and students. The shift was uncomfortable and took time to adjust to, but during the shifting stage, a lot of the damage was done to the economy.
Service companies that deal with clients on a regular basis were unable to shift to home-based work, but had to comply with lockdown restrictions, lost a lot of their clients, and in turn lost a lot of money and were unable to pay their staff due to which they had to let go of a lot of people. The same has been the story of a lot of local companies that either hadn’t been flexible enough in their operations, or didn’t have enough resources to shift, or were simply waiting for the pandemic to be over in order to start again. In most cases, it was the external factors that led to the shutting down of businesses.
Due to this, the GDP rate of the Pakistan economy fell to an all-time low to negative 0.4% when the pandemic was at its peak in mid 2020.
But as you can see in the above graph, Pakistan recovered quite quickly and was able to boost its GDP. The way Pakistan had handled the Covid-19 situation had been commendable throughout the world, even in the West. Our Prime Minister, Imran Khan, even went to the USA and delivered the same strategy that his government had applied in Pakistan.
So how was Pakistan able to recover so fast when the rest of the world was still trying to get back on its feet?
Well, the answer lies in strict policies, implementation of SOPs, self-awareness and self-isolation, and ability to take action on time! No entry without masks, availability of hand sanitizer and compulsion to use it, and to maintain social distance were some of the actions that had to be taken responsibly by each individual. But the main responsibility lied in not stepping outside the house at all until absolutely necessary, the ability of schools and organizations to come up with creative ways to increase productivity and output, being flexible enough to adapt to any situation while delivering results, and most importantly being brave enough to accept the situation the way it is instead of denying it or waiting for it to be over, and taking quick necessary actions and decisions.
