Top US Economist Commends Pakistan’s Proactive Approach to the Pandemic

One of the most well-known and top US economists has praised Pakistan for all of its efforts in fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has taken over major economies across the globe. 

Lawrence H Summers was previously a senior official in the US Treasury Department during the complete tenure of President Bill Clinton. He also held the position as a director of the National Economic Council while Barack Obama occupied the office of the President. 

In recent news, Summers stated that the United States’ battle against the coronavirus was an ‘unimaginable’ failure. He appeared on CNN on Fareed Zakaria’s show and talked about how miserably the country had failed in dealing with the pandemic. 

The experienced economist also tweeted from his official handle saying that the United States’ should have been as proactive as Pakistan has been in its approach to dealing with the virus. President Emeritus at Harvard, Summers was of the opinion that had they followed in Pakistan’s footsteps, the country could have saved up on $10 trillion that is lost. 

In another tweet, he also suggested that the government should focus on making investments towards the renewal of infrastructure. Along with this, according to him, state and local government should be supported and lower-income families and the unemployed should be provided with assistance. Summers was disgusted by the fact that the US these days is only lending money out to those corporations that it believes are creditworthy. 

Back in September, the World Health Organization (WHO) also commended Pakistan in the efforts it made to control and curb the coronavirus. 

The Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, talked about Pakistan in a media briefing. He informed that the country had built up infrastructure over the past few years to fight polio. This very infrastructure was deployed to fight the pandemic. 

He also went on to add that Pakistan is one of the few countries that have set an example for the international community. In his opinion, other countries should try to emulate Pakistan’s approach. 

On the 26th of February, 2020, the country reported its first coronavirus case. A few weeks later, a countrywide lockdown was imposed. 

The official statistics state that Pakistan has so far only reported nearly 323,000 Covid-19 cases. The country has had as many as 6,700 deaths. On the bright side, almost 307,200 patients, who were diagnosed with the virus, have since recovered.