Zakaria Never Misses an Opportunity to Disparage Pakistan
By Riaz Haq
CA
Interviewing Bill Gates on global fight against COVID19, CNN GPS host Fareed Zakaria said on August 9 that Pakistan "has done almost nothing as far as I can tell; you know, infections are not going crazy, death rates are not going crazy, there may be some underreporting".
Needless to say, Zakaria's claim is debunked by "Government Response Stringency Index" and Google Mobility Reports which Bill Gates is clearly aware of. So he ignored Zakaria's claim and responded as follows: "Pakistan had a pretty bad peak in Karachi but those numbers have come down and now they look like Europe. India is still sadly in growth phase as is South America...in Africa, South Africa is top...in the rest of Africa we've been funding a lot of testing because it's a bit opaque …what goes on in the lungs ... you are more exposed to indoor and outdoor particulates even at younger ages you can get disease compared to, let's say, a rich country"
Data on Pakistan's Response to COVID19
Is Fareed Zakaria right? Has Pakistan really done nothing to fight the COVID19 pandemic? Let's answer this question.
The first answer can be found in the video flashes from Pakistan that were playing as Fareed Zakaria was disparaging Pakistan's efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus. The video shows people wearing masks on the streets in Pakistan. It also shows a worker spraying disinfectant. Another scene shows worshippers wearing masks while sitting apart from each other in a mosque. Does Fareed Zakaria think "nothing" of what is visible on the screen in his show? Did he ask his producer what was being transmitted to the audience as he spoke?
The second and more data-centric answer can be seen in the "Government Response Stringency Index" that tracks various restrictions imposed by governments to control the spread of coronavirus. The Index tracks restrictions, including school closures, workplace closures, and travel bans, scaled from 0 to 100 where 100 is the strictest response. It's based on data from Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. The tracker shows that the Pakistan government response was nearly as stringent as India's and more stringent than that of the United Kingdom.
Another indicator of restrictions comes from the Google Mobility Index which also confirms a dramatic effect of lockdown imposed by federal and provincial governments in Pakistan. It shows that mobility was down as much as 65% during the lockdown when compared with the period just prior to the lockdown.
Health Chief Dr Zafar Mirza's Interview
What has improved the COVID19 situation in Pakistan? Is it just Pakistan's good fortune? Why is it so different from the situation in neighboring India where infections are rising? Is it the result of a series of deliberate interventions by Pakistan's government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan? What are the key factors contributing to falling coronavirus transmission rate in the country? Here are some of Pakistan's Health Chief Dr Zafar Mirza's answers to these questions that came to light in a recent interview with Pakistani journalist Bilal Lakhani:
1. There were 50 different interventions with 2,300 smart lockdowns covering 47 million people based on data driven evidence of disease spread.
2. Significant change in people's behavior with large percentage wearing masks and taking other precautions to prevent transmission.
3. A fall in positivity from over 22% to below 10%, and excluding Sindh, near 5% for the country.
4. Significant decline in hospitalizations and fewer patients in critical care.
5. The government staying the course while ignoring the mass hysteria for total nationwide lockdown like India's stirred up in the media came mainly from the well-fed rich and the upper middle class. The voices of the ordinary people and daily wage earners were not part of public discourse reported by the media.
Zakaria's Views on Terrorism
Fareed Zakaria has often talked of what he labels "Islamic Terrorism", a label that both Presidents Barack Obama and Geoge W. Bush shunned. Both ex-presidents rejected associating terrorism with any religion. But not Fareed Zakaria who has essentially toed the Indian line of calling it "Islamic Terrorism" and has labeled Pakistan as the "epicenter of Islamic Terrorism".
Far from being objective, Zakaria is in fact a cheerleader for India, the country of his birth. In his book "The Post-American World", he describes India as a "powerful package" and claims India has been "peaceful, stable, and prosperous".
Summary:CNN GPS host Fareed Zakaria has shown yet again that he is incapable of being objective when it comes to discussing anything related to Pakistan. He claims that Pakistan "has done almost nothing" in fighting the COVID19 pandemic, a claim that is debunked by "Government Response Stringency Index" and Google Mobility Reports. In fact, the video flashes from Pakistan as Fareed Zakaria was disparaging Pakistan's efforts to control the spread pf coronavirus show people wearing masks on the streets in Pakistan. They also show a worker spraying disinfectant. Another scene shows worshippers wearing masks while sitting apart from each other in a mosque. Fareed Zakaria's bias against Pakistan is ridiculously obvious to any objective observer who has even the slightest knowledge of the country.
Here's a video clip from CNN GPS Show:
https://youtu.be/KpAMVLwBJkM
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