Asad Umar the Minister for Federal Planning and Development said that the government will utilize technology to track Covid-19 patients and map out virus hotspots as part of its ‘smart lockdown’ strategy.
While talking to the media he said, “We need to ensure that the policies we are making can be implemented on the ground as well.” The Minister who chairs the NCOC said they had initially carried out the ‘test, track and quarantine’ strategy but now they needed to see the areas where the virus had spread.
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He said, “With the help of data which has been collected thus far, the government will implement a ‘smart lockdown’ to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.”
At the briefing, he showed a map showing the virus hotspots in the country and he showed that with more cases, it can be narrowed down to neighborhoods. Elaborating on the smart lockdown he said that healthcare teams would inspect the areas and determine how much of the area needed to be sealed.
He said that such a lockdown had been implemented in 359 locations in Punjab and 177 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Umar said, “These [areas] could be one or two lanes or bigger than that,” and said “As we move forward, we will keep fine-tuning the process.”
