Time to heed health experts' advice on Covid-19 measures: Bilawal

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Thursday stressed the need for heeding the advice of doctors and health experts calling for a strict lockdown to arrest the spread of coronavirus in the country.

“This is not the time for populous electoral politics. This is the time to make decisions based on the advice of doctors and health experts,” he said while talking to BBC.

He added health professionals from Lahore to Karachi are protesting, giving press conferences, and appealing to them to take necessary steps to protect them and to ease the burden on the healthcare system.

The young PPP leader said Sindh was the first province to introduce lockdown and strict restrictions to stem Covid-19.

He said the provincial government was trying to convince ulema to abide by lockdown restrictions they were already adhering to but now this is difficult given mixed messages on the issue from the Centre on the issue.

The number of cases of the virus across the country has surged past 11,000, including 235 deaths.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah today confirmed 298 new coronavirus cases in the province.

In a video statement released from the CM House, he said out of the 298 cases reported over the past 24 hours, 202 cases were detected in Karachi while 96 emerged in other districts of the province.

CM Murad said that four more have died from novel coronavirus in the province during this period, taking the provincial toll to 73. He said the coronavirus cases in Karachi stand at 2,409 while the provincial tally of positive cases has risen to 3,671.