This Tuesday morning the score was 2.5 million infected over the last five weeks with 171,244 deaths. This means the international ‘Fatality Rate’ stands at 6.85 per cent of those infected. This fatality rate seems to be holding true for the last two weeks.

Now that surely is serious, and all policies to end lockdowns have to revolve around this reality. Germany is the only ray of hope, though with a shocking fatality rate of 11.22 per cent of those affected, but no new cases coming up, and a death rate per million of only 58. So the Germans have truly got to grips with coronavirus and are beginning to open up. Let us look at the extremes.

Spain has a fatality rate of 455 per million of population, Italy 399 and France 310. These are the worst scenario cases. The UK is fourth on the list with a death rate of 243 and slowly rising. That is why lockdowns in these countries are strict. Take the USA that has a death rate per million of population of 128. Given States where the rate is low, Mr Trump is trumping away to end lockdown. But what about India and Pakistan.

India, with its massive 1.2 billion population has a death rate per million of only 0.4 persons, and Pakistan with 220 million has a death rate of 0.9 persons.

The point to understand in these critical statistics is why there is public pressure to ease or end the lockdown. The fear among the rulers of the sub-continent is that the rise and rise towards a peak is yet to come. Hence the public pressure. Low educational awareness and low death rates is difficult to counter. That is why education is so critical.

But what do the world’s finest economists and policy planners say about the future where energy use has led to negative rates of oil ‘futures’. This does not mean free petrol, for the future rates stand at about US$21.50 a barrel. It means that as storage is not available, future bookings have stopped. If Pakistan has a lot of dollars, they should buy, but send their own ships only as none are available. So forget cheaper petrol.

But what about the post-pandemic economic scene in Pakistan. Policy and economic professors of Pakistani origin in foreign universities are advising immediate debt restructuring, shared debt solutions, import-substitution policies, credit without interest for exporters after execution and profits declared to tax authorities, end to all subsidies, every citizen be taxed no matter how meagre, and most importantly, immediately zoning of land areas to meet local needs of cotton, sugar, wheat, vegetables, oilseeds, lentils and spices.

A balanced crop zoning policy is critical. If the pandemic results in such a policy, then the sad sacrifices will be worth the effort … that is IF our business politicians do not prevail. Remember Machiavelli’s saying: “When a trader becomes the Prince, all he can do is sell the State”. How true.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2020