Covid-19 affects 2.7m households
People forced to sell household goods to buy basic needs during the pandemic
Alarge number of lowincome households, particularly those belonging the private sector employees and daily-wage earners, has suffered from the worst economic effects of the pandemic. Joblessness, closure of businesses, layoffs have left a large number of people with little or no means to provide for their livelihoods.
This has been revealed in a recent survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan, according to which around 2.1 million households were forced to sell off their household goods to buy food and to meet other basic needs of life.
The Pakistan government has also launched the Ehsas
Emergency Cash Assistance Programme for those affected by the pandemic. So far, 10.26 million families have received a cash assistance of Rs152.75 billion (Dh3.37 billion).
It has also been revealed that for daily needs and basic necessities of life, around 2.7 million households were dependent upon the government, different charity groups or non-government organisations (NGOs). Pakistan — with 65 deaths and 2,752 positive cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours — reported a total 246,351 confirmed cases, with 2,156 of those in critical conditions yesterday.
Success
Overall, 5,123 deaths have occurred so far due to coronavirus. According to Asad Umar, the Minister for Special Initiatives and Chairman of the Coronavirus Control Committee, Pakistan has seen a major success in the fight against the virus as patient dependence on ventilators and oxygenated beds dropped to 28 per cent.
In a post he shared on Twitter yesterday, Asad Umar informed that on June 20, Pakistan had reported 2,969 patients on oxygen support and 546 on ventilators.
However, on Friday there were 1,762 on oxygenated beds and 394 on ventilators. This means 28 per cent reduction in the number of critical patients.