'We as a nation not prepared to face coronavirus endemic' says Murad.

KARACHI -- Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that as a nation our preparedness to contain Coronavirus threat is weak, unorganized and without national guidance.

'We are not prepared to face the [coronavirus] endemic because the provinces, particularly Sindh has been left alone to take decision whatever it wants but there is no guidance from the federal government and this is dangerous.'

This he said on Thursday while participating in the meeting of Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Health Dr Zafar Miraza through video link from CM House. The chief minister was assisted by Minister Health Dr Azra Pechuho, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, Advisor Law Murtaza Wahab, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary Health Dr Zahid Abbasi, and Prof. Dr Faisal of Aga Khan.

Mr Shah said that thousands of people were landing at the airports in Pakistan and our system did not diagnose them even if any of them had symptoms of influenza or fever. 'The cases we have detected when they had been cleared from the airport,' he said.He said that 14 cases have been detected in Sindh because his dedicated team was running from pillar to post to catch up the persons who have the travel history and even go behind their contacts.

The chief minister said that he matters pertaining to the closing of borders, closing or opening of educational institutions, strict checking measure at the airports, quarantine arrangements, traveling of pilgrims from Taftan to up-country were some of the decisions which would have been taken on national level. 'Only Sindh and Balochistan have closed educational institutions and we are also taking such decisions in isolation,' he regretted.

He said that 2683 pilgrims from Pakistan were in quarantine at Taftan, Balochistan border, of them 853 belonged to Sindh and they would start arriving in the province from Friday evening.

The chief minister said that 932 pilgrims of Sindh have been identified and they all were in Iran. He added that out of 2683 pilgrims at Taftan, 853 belonged to Sindh and their forts batch would start pouring from tomorrow evening for which necessary arrangements have been made at Sukkur.

The meeting was told that so far Sindh govt has conducted 198 tests of the suspects, of them 184 were declared as negative and 14 as positive. The chief minister said that all the 14 cases were imported and there was no local transmission. He added out of 14 cases, eight have the travel history of Syria, three have of Dubai-UK and...