DAWN EDITORIALS Dated: Friday 08 May, 2020 (M.

Usman)

Zakat matters
THE collection and distribution of zakat by the state has once more come under
discussion, this time due to the Supreme Court taking up a suo motu case
concerning the government’s handling of this religious obligation. The
mandatory deduction of zakat at source from bank accounts is a holdover from
the Ziaul Haq era, when the military dictator introduced various laws to
‘Islamicise’ the state. During a hearing last month, the apex court questioned
transparency in the distribution of zakat funds, with the chief justice
commenting that there was no clear information about how zakat funds were
deducted and provided to deserving persons. At a follow-up hearing this week,
religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani — who had been asked by the court to give
his observations — said that if a fresh zakat collection and distribution system
could not be put in place, perhaps it was time the state let go of the management
of this religious tax.

Even when the mandatory deduction of zakat was introduced by Gen Zia, it was
not without controversy. For example, in 1980 Shia protesters marched on
Islamabad to protest the forced deduction of zakat. The primary reason for this
was that the methodology used to calculate zakat differs in the Jafari fiqh as
compared to Hanafi law. Zia had to relent. Later, members of all other sects
could also opt out. In fact, just before the first of Ramazan, people belonging to
these sects file affidavits or empty out their bank accounts to prevent the
deduction of zakat. The fact is that there is a wide trust deficit between the state
and the people; citizens are right in asking where and how their zakat funds will
be spent. As the learned judges of the apex court also questioned, how can an
amount collected for the poor be spent on “foreign trips, TA/DA or salaries. ...”

With the matter currently being reviewed, this would be a good time to revisit
the mandatory deduction of zakat by the state. As it is, Pakistanis are a generous
nation. According to various figures, people in this country give billions of
rupees in charity annually. The fact is that the state — with its various
deficiencies — has no business forcibly collecting zakat. This is a matter
between man and his Maker, and should remain as such. Moreover, with such
controversy surrounding the spending of zakat funds, it is doubtful that the
government can reform the system. Let people give zakat and other dues on
their own. After all, many organisations working in the health and education
sector have done stellar jobs by spending people’s zakat and donations for the
uplift of this nation’s poor, sick and hungry in a transparent, responsible
manner. It is about time the state stopped forced deduction, and let citizens give
zakat to people or organisations of their choice.

EDITORIAL VOCAB:

1. Hold over: become official

2. Relent: become less severe, having mercy
3. Sects: religious classes, division based on religion
4. Trust deficit: lacking turst on someone, inadequacy
5. TA&DA: Travelling allowance and dearness allowance
6. Deduction: substraction,
A farce called NAB
Farce means something unfair and badly organized

NAB IS once more in the dock, literally. The PML-Q leadership — the ruling
PTI’s ally — has challenged before the Lahore High Court a NAB decision to
reopen a 20-year-old inquiry against Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry
Pervaiz Elahi. The inquiry pertains to allegations of misuse of authority, assets
beyond means and wilful default under the National Accountability Ordinance
1999 against the petitioners. The three probes had been recommended for
closure by investigators in 2017 and 2018 but were reopened last year. The
Chaudhry duo claim that the NAB chairman doesn’t have a single piece of
evidence or material to form an opinion under the ordinance and authorise an
investigation. They have also challenged the accountability body’s jurisdiction
to invoke the money-laundering law against them. But has the lack of credible
evidence ever deterred NAB from (re)opening a probe, arresting a person or
overstepping its authority in general?

The petitioners argue that the bureau’s credibility and partiality had been the
subject of public debate because of its use for political engineering, and
maintain that the order against them was meant to “contain and cage” them and
limit their party’s role in politics. They point out that even the superior judiciary
had taken notice of NAB’s conduct and the manner in which its officials
exercised their powers in the past. This sounds familiar. The Chaudhrys aren’t
the first or the last casualty of the accountability body, which allegedly helped
the powers that be to engineer the 2018 polls, demoralised bureaucracy and
dampened business sentiments long before the Covid-19 contagion struck the
economy. It is just that it has hit closer to the homes of those who thought they
were protected against the bureau’s high-handedness. NAB’s poor track record
in solving cases on the basis of solid evidence should be a matter of massive
embarrassment for the anti-graft watchdog, which has lost its credibility, if,
indeed, it ever had any. Realising the negative impact of its accountability drive
on the economy, the government had a few months ago issued an ordinance to
selectively clip the bureau’s powers to proceed against bureaucrats and
businessmen. But that has not solved the problem. The accountability law that
provides for NAB’s creation is a bad law and no change will ever give it
credibility. The law needs to be repealed and the bureau shut down for the sake
of ending this farce and creating an atmosphere where people can feel safe
regardless of their political affiliations.

EDITORIAL VOCAB:

1. In the dock(idiom): subjected to intense criticism and scrutiny,

2. Chaudhary duo: duo means two people or couple like chudhry brothers
3. Overstepping: cross the boundary
4. Probe: investigation
5. Deterred: discourage prevent
6. Dampened: suffocate, curb, discourage
7. anti-graft: designed to reduce corruption
8. farce: unfair, bad reputed
9. repealed: cancellation, annulment
Deprived of inheritance

WOE betide a woman who insists on her rights in this patriarchal society. The
full spectrum of family and communal pressure, underpinned by hidebound
notions of ‘honour’, is applied to compel her retreat. A report in this paper
yesterday told of the ordeal endured by 20-year-old Iqra Perveen in rural Punjab
simply because she had the temerity to demand her share in the family
inheritance. A series of interdependent family ties complicated the scenario still
further, driving her to threaten suicide. An uncle of Iqra’s has filed an
application with the police, claiming her father and brothers were indeed
scheming to deprive her of her share and that she was in danger of being killed
by them on the pretext of honour.

The story is sadly typical of a society where women have to navigate a plethora
of prejudices and misogynistic traditions on a daily basis. Legislation to protect
their rights may have been on the statute books for several years, but many
women’s lived reality is quite different. Defiance can come at a very high price,
and acquiescence in an essentially male-dominated environment seems far more
practical than seeking redressal. Last year in Punjab, a woman was rescued after
having been held captive in a room for an entire decade by her brothers who did
not want her to get her rightful share in the family property. Under the
Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Act, 2011, depriving women of inheriting
property by “deceitful or illegal means” is punishable with imprisonment of up
to 10 years, but no less than five, or with a Rs1m fine, or both. Nevertheless,
men’s sense of entitlement continues to trample on the rights of female
relatives. Sometimes however, outliers like Iqra Perveen emerge, refusing to be
cowed by ‘tradition’, demanding they be given their due. The state must not
countenance any attempt to intimidate women into giving up their inheritance;
those guilty of trying to do so must be firmly dealt with. Only then can things
change.

EDITORIAL VOCAB:

1. woe betide(idiom): if said to someone, it means something bad will happen

to them.
2. Hidebound: stubborn, narrow-minded
3. Underpinned: sorrounded, bearout,supported by
4. Retreat: pull back, withdraw
5. Temerity: boldness, Daring
6. Pretext: on account of, alleged reason
7. Defiance: resistance
8. Trample: underfoot, crush
New realisations

The writer works at Oxford University Press, Pakistan.

I LOOK out at my boys kicking a football in the garden, a cup of tea in my

hand, my phone and laptop in front of me as I type away. It seems as if the
multiple worlds that I found hard to juggle have all come together in the current
lockdown. There is no need to make endless coordination phone calls; all
activity is now centralised and unfolding right before my eyes. The nine-to-five
job as we know it is over, although the work is continuing at a fast pace and in
fact building momentum as each passing day makes us more adept at operating
in this ‘new normal’.

All the teachers who found their head underwater having to brave the new tide
of online learning soon began enjoying the new modus operandi. Teaching from
the comfort of one’s own bedroom isn’t such a bad thing after all. While digital
teaching threw many of us out of our comfort zones, we seem to have found an
alternative thrill in innovation and new experience. Personal lives have turned
around in remarkable ways. Those who had a sedentary lifestyle are now taking
recourse in plenty of sunshine, exercise and immunity-building nutrients.
Parents of teenagers who did not see enough of their hyper-socialising children
are getting time to engage with them again.

Many of these parents, who were previously cynical of technology, have had to
take recourse in their teenage children’s ability to bring them up to speed.
Others have had to get on the technological bandwagon to help their younger
children navigate their new life of online classes.

Let’s hope we do not forget this interdependence.

Besides home learning support, parents have had to find ways to make the day
constructive for their restless children. There is a massive amount of
information on the internet for those looking for suggestions for activities in
lockdown. From meditation and prayer, to organising charity initiatives,
reading, family board games, baking, cooking and knitting, the list of things to
do at home is hugely exciting. Suddenly, it seems, we are all a team living a
reality show similar to Big Brother — except that this is not fiction. While we
are thrown into teams in our little family units, we are learning to be more
accommodating, considerate and perhaps kinder. It has been a time of giving,
sharing and appreciating each other, especially the parents who juggle between
jobs and childcare, and the teachers who kept learning afloat.

As we trudge through this uncertainty, we realise how interdependent we really

are. Between work meetings, we share recipes with those of us struggling to
cook meals without domestic help. We calm each other down through the
Covid-19 panic, we set up digital playdates for our children and, between all of
that, we try to strengthen the immunity for those in the family who are at a
higher risk.

Many have also learnt new-found appreciation for the front-line workers in
healthcare whom we once took for granted. Equally important have been the
volunteers who have risked their lives to distribute ration to families in need,
often in remote and far-flung areas. The pandemic has taken us back to the very
basics of survival and for those looking closely, it has also taught us that, at the
core of our being, we live to love and protect each other.

This might be a time riddled with fear, panic, loss and grief but the need to
reach out and help has never been felt more acutely in our society, where the
divide between privilege and the lack of it has always been huge. It is now
severely fudged by a virus that spares no one. Some say the world will never be
the same again; while we do not have a crystal ball to foresee the future, one
thing is certain — we have all realised our immense adaptability and capacity
for new learning, our ability to rise to challenging situations and our resilience
at bouncing back from difficult situations.

When the beast of this pandemic withdraws its teeth, and hopefully the time
isn’t far, let’s hope we do not forget this interdependence that has kept us going
— we don’t need to wait for another pandemic to help cushion the struggling
poor. We now know that timely institutional help and a ready infrastructure can
save lives and it would help to start building that bridge. The coronavirus has
shown us what we all knew but refused to acknowledge — the deadliest disease
in our society has always been poverty; any other threats only compound our
state of disarray.

The ‘new normal’ could perhaps teach us to do things differently, rearrange our
priorities and strengthen the institutions that ensure our survival and the well-
being of our society. Economic rebuilding is a hard task for any state, but weak
foundations make the job exponentially harder. More than ever before, we need
our teachers, researchers, social workers, scientists and economists. Perhaps it is
time to revisit whether we value them enough.

OPINION VOCAB:

1. Modus operandi: methodology

2. Tide: turning, tendency
3. New normal: when something previously abnormal becomes common
thing.
4. Afloat: going around
5. Big brother: fictional character in the nocel of Jorge Orwell of 1984.
6. Dissaray: lack of balance
Posthumous works
Posthumous means work published after death

THE world would have been denied the richness and scholarship of some of
Franz Kafka’s literary work — especially The Metamorphosis — had his friend
and executor, Max Brod, not decided to ignore Kafka’s instruction in his will to
destroy the unpublished manuscripts he left behind. Kafka died young in 1924.

Other writers have generally been pragmatic by not leaving a will. There are
quite a number of them though we hardly note it. Albert Camus’ A Happy
Death as well as Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder saw the light of day when
the authors were no more.

Such books usually have a story behind them. Those who take the responsibility
of ensuring that a work is not figuratively buried with the author not only have
faith in the latter but are also erudite enough themselves to appreciate the value
of the writing. One such instance is that of Naveed Ahmad Tahir who put
together the incomplete memoirs of her father, Dawn’s former editor-in-chief
Ahmad Ali Khan, in 2014. In Search of Sense did not tell the whole story when
death took away its author in 2007.

Naveed tried to leave no questions unanswered by putting together her father’s

copious notes and some published and unpublished material in the book which
also contains some commissioned articles by family members and fellow
journalists.

They had been lost to the world until they surfaced again.

Naveed describes Khan Sahib as a “shy and self-effacing” person who was
reluctant to write about himself. She managed to persuade him to embark on his
autobiographical mission by suggesting that a decision about its publication
could be taken later. So it was basically Naveed’s own decision to publish it.
She has dedicated the book to the “young and aspiring journalists” who will
definitely benefit from it. The book reflects fully Khan Sahib’s ideological ethos
and journalistic “moral boundaries” that made him one of the greatest editors in
Pakistan.

I have recently learnt of one more book by another Dawn colleague published
posthumously that proved to be a challenge of another kind. When Shama
Askari presented me with three slim volumes she has had published I was
curious. Authored by Ibn-i-Said, one of them was a collection of short stories
that appeared in literary magazines more than five decades ago.
In effect, they had been lost to the world until they surfaced again in 2018,
thanks to Shama’s efforts at playing detective. I had never heard this name till I
was told that it was our own M.H. Askari who had been a leader writer and
columnist in Dawn.

Askari Sahib, as we called him, was a gem of a person, affable and helpful with
profound knowledge and information of current affairs and personalities. He
was so closely embedded in the world of English journalism that it was a
discovery for me that his forte was also Urdu literary writing. He never spoke
about it and how would we know as he used the pen name Ibn-i-Said (Mirza
Mohammad Said was his father).

Why did he want to hide his identity, I asked Shama (who incidentally is his
daughter-in-law). She at once sent me a quote by Askari Sahib himself
explaining his choice of being anonymous, “…in the presence of an
accomplished writer (the well-known Urdu critic Hasan Askari) I thought it was
better to write under a pen name”.

Normally having a collection of published afsanas compiled in one book would

not be regarded as a major feat. But in this case it was. Askari Sahib left no
record and it was backbreaking work to trace stories with the byline of Ibn-i-
Said scattered in six literary magazines spanning a period of 25 years, with the
first one having appeared in 1945. There was no clue that would help Shama to
even start her search.

After 10 years, she had nearly given up when she found an issue of the Mah-i-
Nau in Askari Sahib’s papers that he had entrusted to her shortly before his
death in 2005. Then it took her two years with support from Dr Asif Farrukhi
and unending visits to libraries (from Bedil to Khwaja Mushfiq and Ghalib
libraries) to trace out 40 stories. Some of these subtly record the underlying
sentiment of resistance against the colonisers in whose army the author was
himself serving during the closing months of the Second World War.

Shama doesn’t describe her work as a labour of love but says she actually felt
“honour bound and compelled” to search for the stories and have them
published. “He had almost entrusted me with this job and I implicitly believe
that the written word or inspired work cannot die, it has a life of its own,” she
adds passionately.

Whatever one’s motivation for publishing a work posthumously, a sense of

commitment must be there. It clearly exists in both cases mentioned in this
column. For the readers what matters is that they have not been denied the
chance of reading these works that now enrich the book world.

OPINION VOCAB:

1. Posthumously: after death

2. Metamorphosis: Change in the structure
3. Erudite enough: scholar, well learned
4. Copious notes: abundant, plentiful notes.
5. self-affacing: not having any hunger for attention
6. backbreaking work: very hard work, tedious work
7. affable: friendly
Heroes under attack

the writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

I AM not at all embarrassed to admit that apparently like so many who populate
the mainstream of my beloved homeland, I have been guilty of trying to drown
my Covid-19-generated fears in the local formula made up of easy-on-the-
conscience films and cricket.

The heroes the side stories throw up are too heart-wrenching. Best ignored are
incidents involving daily-life characters such as the valiant doctors and other
members of their teams who have been trying to take the wild virus by the
horns. Best forgotten are the tragic-ending stories of young graduates from a
sufficiently remote socially, politically, economically, distant province who
could have been hero material in the hands of those responsible for crafting
responsible valuable citizens before they went astray and went down in a hail of
bullets. They do catch attention but only fleetingly when the intent is finding
relief in ‘serious stuff’.

Every phase generates its own justifications. These distractions are there ever so
briefly before they are allowed to escape, eagerly swapped with a desire to live.
These are stressful times. An individual can take so much and no more. People
have to live and let live, or let die, if, unfortunately, it comes to that.

But what antidote can cure those who are bent upon creating serious stuff out of
nothing? It looks as if they quite enjoy living in their fatalistic worlds and are
prepared to expose themselves to the ever-newer dangers.

Social media is full of shocking passage of famous heroes otherwise known for
their timing. It is so, or maybe the encompassing makes it look so, that the
instance of reporting death and illnesses on these social media platforms has
increased in the wake of the virus — or maybe they were always there but you
have just noticed them now because of the extended time you spend following
info on these forums.

Some of the current topics on social media are most reflective of how edgy
people are and how keen to lay bare some of the ghosts of the past. However,
the relief-seeking souls such as you know who would have rather wanted this
debate to be put off to calmer times, thinking that there will never ever be the
‘right atmosphere’.

This debate about two sets of heroes: the virtuous invaders of Sindh on one side
and the sons of the soil who tried to thwart the foreigners’ advance on the other.
Any number of people are willing to take part in the discussion at any forum,
but has the Covid-19 pandemic in any way emboldened the arguments? It’s
difficult to say but the tone is definitely at its most harsh and if it was ever
needed, this reconfirms our lack of training to hold a dialogue without flaunting
our inclination to violently trample upon territory we cannot win in a sober
state.

A friend says it is advisable to stay away from social media forums in these
troubled times. Instead, your company — read the children you have raised to
their present natural socially distanced state — casually advises you to go binge
watch some Turkish series on television. Cannot even pronounce the name of
the series the best efforts of Mian Shahbaz Sharif and others before and after
him to bring the two countries closer. Consequently have to stick to the classic
and most efficient Rishi Kapoor, the very unique and incomparable Irrfan Khan
and of course one’s first love, our opium cricket.

God will never forgive those who are bent upon snatching our cricketing idols
from us. Yet it seems that some kind of a campaign is under way yet again to
discredit and vilify the most brilliant of our cricketers. That man, Salim Malik, a
longtime personal favourite who appeared on the streets of Lahore some five
decades ago, bat in hand and wrists that could give things the most sinister twist,
is back again. He is out to cause grave damage to national cricket. What do they
call it? Ready to rat on his old friends behind his innocent exterior.

This is against the run of play. Some of Malik’s peers had been filling in nicely
as the audience craved cricket news in the barren Covid-19 period. His under-19
captain, Ramiz Raja, was on the forefront of the morally correct as he loudly
demanded bans for those found guilty of match-fixing.

Not just that, it seemed that Ramiz had taken the promise of the removal of the
two-yard-distance restriction post Covid-19 rather too literally. He suggested
that as things returned to normal, the distance of the cricket pitch could be cut
by two yards to facilitate the bowlers. What he forgot to add was that we will
need a Wasim Hasan Raja at the wicket to deal with the ensuing situation.

Ramiz Raja’s revolutionary suggestion to reduce the length of the cricket pitch
was in response to the catastrophic scenario which said that in future the
bowlers will not be allowed to use spit on the ball to shine it. Everyone believed
that this would reduce some of the best fast bowlers to ineffective imposters and
medium pacers to mere trundles. Hence the ingenuous proposal by Ramiz Raja,
which has unluckily for him not found too many catchers so far.

The world is more receptive to voices emanating from Pakistan that speak of the
involvement of our giants in fixing. The Malik appeal which has been
interpreted as an apology to authorities by some raises a basic question. One
fundamental issue is whether he was given as fair a deal as the others or was he
the fall guy while the rest, in Pakistani slang, dunya ko thook laga gaye?
(Though the expression may be untranslatable into English, it’s generally about
hoodwinking people). Let’s try and rehabilitate Malik folks if that’s what it
takes. Cannot afford to lose these heroes in these dire times.

OPINION VOCAB:

1. heart-wrenching: causing great mental suffering

2. swapped with: giving and talking, exchange trade
3. edgy people: very nervous people
4. flaunting: show off, display
5. ensuing situation: ina consequence of, resultantly situation
6. ingenuous: clever, resourceful
The lockdown dilemma

The writer is a former member of the prime minister’s economic advisory council, and heads a
macroeconomic consultancy based in Islamabad.

THE federal government has decided to substantially ease the national

lockdown imposed to suppress the outbreak of Covid-19. This is easily among
the most difficult, consequential as well as contentious decisions any
government has had to take in Pakistan’s recent history.

Governments around the world, including the most developed ones, have
struggled to make timely (as well as even the right) decisions with regard to the
complex issues thrown up by the Covid-19 pandemic. At the heart of the
complexity are social choice questions surrounding the ‘lives versus
livelihoods’ debate. In a nutshell, two important ones are inter alia:

1) Should the economic livelihood and generational prosperity of a younger,

healthier cohort within society be sacrificed to protect the remaining years of a
relatively smaller (though still sizeable in many countries) older cohort — one
that may be afflicted by co-morbidities?

2) With a low population-wide case mortality rate, and the possibility of ‘herd
immunity’ being developed with exposure of the broader population over time,
does shutting down the entire economy for an extended period of time to
suppress the virus make sense, especially given the economic structure and
realities that face millions (informal workers/daily wage earners in particular)?

Flawed reasoning and muddled maths are informing government

action.

Arriving at clear-cut decisions based on scientific ‘evidence’ is clouded by the

added complexity provided by the novelty of this strain of coronavirus, where
some of the underlying assumptions in the arguments are far from settled (such
as the questions of herd immunity or lower susceptibility of the younger
population).
In Pakistan, the federal government has generally muddled along in its response
since late February, with its lack of clarity reflected in mixed messaging (and
weak enforcement) viz the lockdown. As the economic costs and consequences
mount in magnitude and significance, the government is finally at the end of its
tether, and is relying on a combination of genuine humanitarian concern and
untenable logic (mixed with muddled maths) to justify its predisposition to a
partial, short duration lockdown.

The national coordinator responsible for leading the government response has
compared the current mortality rate from Covid-19 to deaths from road
accidents each year, and arrived at the conclusion that since the latter kill more
Pakistanis each year and yet road traffic is not banned, the same logic should
apply to Covid-19. The flaw in his reasoning? Unlike Covid-19, road accidents
are not known to be contagious — and will follow a linear path over a given
period of time for a country. The even more dangerous part of his argument?
The muddled maths.

Ignoring the exponential nature of the mathematics associated with virus

pandemics, the minister has extrapolated linearly from the average number of
daily deaths so far (the early phase of the outbreak) to a monthly total of 720.
However, if on day one (‘t’) there are 24 deaths, with a case fatality rate (CFR)
of 2.3 per cent, it implies total confirmed cases of 1,043. With a basic
reproduction number (R-zero) of around two, the total confirmed cases will
spike to over one million by day six. Within less than two days of reaching that
milestone, Pakistan’s entire population (and more) will have been infected.

Of course, the actual trajectory the virus is following is considerably different

— and lower — so far, reflecting the unknowns regarding the actual number of
infected cases in the absence of sufficient testing, the infectiousness rate (R0)
etc. Nonetheless, it does not detract from the fact that mathematical
epidemiology is exponential, not linear. So far, the federal government’s policy
response appears to be a case of policy-led evidence, rather than evidence-led
policy.

Another prop the government has used is a recent influential Yale University
study, which uses a ‘Value of Statistical Life’, or VSL, framework to monetise
the trade-off between saving lives and protecting livelihoods. While applying
VSL to quantify the benefits of mortality risk reduction in cost-benefit analysis
of public policies is a popular method, it suffers from limitations. Individuals
are likely to misperceive mortality risk, especially in developing country
settings. Altruistic concerns are ignored or not captured in the computation of
VSL (for example, saving the lives of relatives or others) — as are distributive
distortions.

The most critical, and flawed, assumption of the Yale study is that the Covid-19
outbreak has no effect/impact on the functioning of the economy. In suggesting
a strategy for lifting the lockdown in poor countries, it assumes that the
economy will resume functioning even while a major epidemic is going on
nationally. Hence, it overstates the economic benefit of lifting restrictions.
On the other hand, as the virus rages and the limited critical-care facilities in the
country are swamped, it will create a national panic, with fearful
customers/buyers, absentee workers, etc — leading quickly to the need to
reintroduce harsh suppression measures (including tighter lockdowns). The
economy will be negatively impacted, and the country will end up with the
worst of both outcomes: a higher death toll as well as lower output and
economic welfare. The net benefit is very likely to be negative in welfare terms.
(A better policy framework is provided by Debraj Ray et al, on the Vox CEPR
policy portal (April 8, 2020)).

Going forward, the only practical option to opening up the economy in a phased
manner is for a surge in the capacity of the public health system, especially its
critical care facilities. The government needs to introduce frequent mass testing,
which is both mandatory as well as free of cost, for those elements of the
workforce with the greatest public contact (and hence, most at risk). And self-
isolation should be enforced for the at-risk population.

Unfortunately, the atrophy of state capacity means that the government is left
with few good options. It cannot provide social safety nets for a large part of the
population, nor can it ramp up quickly enough the country’s critical care health
facilities. The same applies to its testing, surveillance, contact tracing etc
capacity. In this backdrop, it is preparing to ease the lockdown without essential
prerequisites in place.

OPINION VOCAB:

1. contentious: argumentative, controversial

2. inter alia: when you use it, you mean among other things, moreover
3. cohort: group of people in a community
4. afflicted: stricken, effected
5. co-morbidities: condition when a disease person can have more diseases
6. herd-ammunity: when people develop immunity without having vaccinated
because the get adopted to it. Google it…it is very interesting word during
this virus.
7. Untenable logic: flawed logic, making no sense
8. Swamped: very busy, flooded
9. Predisposition: susceptibility towards anything or disease
10. Atrophy : gradually decline in effectiveness, degeneration in medicine