Pakistan's COVID-19 crisis: State of (un)readiness.

KARACHI / ISLAMABAD -- When Italy detected its first COVID-19 cases on January 29, the country's authorities were confident they had the right mix of measures to control the spread of the virus. The country imposed a state of emergency and banned all flights to and from China the very next day.

Less than two weeks later, however, the country trailed behind China and Iran in the number infections. A week more, and it had confirmed 12,462 cases with 1,028 in intensive care and 827 dead.

COVID-19: Tracking the deadly virus outbreak

As of now, Italy has confirmed 74,386 cases - more than 57,000 of them still active - and has lost 7,503 people to the contagion, the highest death toll in any country so far. Its experience with COVID-19 has been both a case study and warning for other countries on how rapidly the virus can spread and how easily it can overwhelm governments if not contained as early as possible.

While Pakistan is in a way lucky not to share all conditions that exacerbated the problem in the Mediterranean nation, there is still a crucial lesson to be learnt from the latter's struggles: healthcare is a finite resource.

In Italy's footsteps?

In a matter of days Pakistan's own COVID-19 tally has soared past 1,100 cases, mirroring the exponential growth in new infections seen in Italy. The worsening situation has prompted all four of the country's provinces as well as Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to impose considerably strict lockdown measures.

While some in the country, particularly in the federal government, have criticised the provinces' preventive steps as premature and overkill, official data on healthcare and quarantine facilities and conversations with members of the medical fraternity reveal why Pakistan can ill afford to repeat Italy's mistakes.

'We are potentially looking at a total disaster if we fail to take precautions now,' warned Dr Tahir Shamsi, who heads the National Institute of Blood Diseases. 'Our healthcare system is already in shambles, struggling to handle routine workload much less COVID-19 patients.'

'If we don't take steps to contain it now, we may end up seeing patients lying in our corridors, streets and footpaths,' he said. 'More than 170 COVID-19 patients fighting for each intensive care unit bed. Not to mention those suffering from other diseases will be deprived too. Failure to enforce precautionary measures may cost Pakistan the lives of as many as 140,000,' Dr Shamsi added.

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