Published 10:27 IST, June 8th 2020
Pakistan media shows PM Imran Khan Uttar Pradesh's Covid figures; says 'compare with this'
A graph shared on Sunday by Pak journalist Fahd Husain shows why UP successfully controlled Coronavirus but Pakistan did not despite having similar demographics
Pakistan's Coronavirus cases crossed the 100,000-mark on Sunday, as Prime Minister Imran Khan ruled out the return to a strict shutdown to stem the spread of the disease and said the elitist idea would collapse the economy and increase poverty. Pakistani media has left no stoned unturned to criticize Imran Khan's handling of the situation. The latest one to slam him is the Resident Editor of country's Dawn newspaper Fahd Hussain.
'UP was strict with lockdown. We were not'
Hussain took to Twitter on Sunday and shared a graph which indicated why Uttar Pradesh has successfully controlled coronavirus deaths but Pakistan did not despite having demographics similar to one of the biggest states in India.
The data said to be compiled from the scientific publication "Our World in Data," Pakistan's population census from 2017, and the World Bank showed that a strict lockdown in UP to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus yielded praiseworthy results. In Pakistan, however, the death rate shot up significantly, as of June 7, as the country did not have a strict lockdown as Imran Khan was never in favour of one.
The data shared by Husain shows that Pakistan and Uttar Pradesh have similar populations -- 208 million and 225 million respectively but the density per km is very different. Both the regions have a similar number of people in the age group of 45 and above which is almost 40 million each and even the literacy rate is not much different.
"UP is not one of those 'rich' places govt always refers to when justifying opening up lockdown. I would invite people to explain why so many had to die in Pakistan and so few in UP," he wrote in a tweet.
'We must know what UP did right & Maharashtra did wrong'
He also compared the situation in Pakistan and Maharashtra and said that the latter has performed "terribly" in relation to Pakistan. "We must know what UP did right & Maharashtra did wrong to learn the right lessons," Husain wrote.
Updated 10:27 IST, June 8th 2020