With all the negativity surrounding the virus, it is positive to see certain state institutions and individuals alike, stepping up and bringing new ideas to both counter the virus and make a long-lasting and beneficial impact to society around them. The first of these is the Higher Education Commission (HEC) which is currently working on devising an online database that will hold information regarding online courses. There is a large student body that will be affected due to this crisis and will lose out on academic activities for a significant amount of time. In this period, if a significant number of the population can be directed to online learning, e-learning can later be used to provide access to education to far-flung areas in Pakistan, and can become a very reliant medium to connect to a large number of people, especially with Pakistan’s growing 4G users.

The government itself, after recognising the pressure on the economy due to a new outbreak, has pledged to make an effort to request international and domestic bodies to revise their agreements in the energy sector to allow Pakistan to use its funds responsibly in the situation. This will help the government in reformulating agreements according to the present rupee depreciation, which will hopefully improve the conditions of the local market.

At the same time, there are also people making relief efforts and providing awareness on a personal level as well. We have the example of several District Commissioners (DCs) and other government functionaries, one of whom even took to social media to sing about the precautions one needs to take during the pandemic. While this opens up a pandora of issues regarding a uniform and needing a coherent narrative from only the top tier of the government in times of a national crisis – a policy reminiscent of the last thirty years of government – however, any individual making an effort to add on to the efforts of the government must be encouraged and not taken as a political threat to any party or the state. At such a crucial time like this, each little effort matters and with the government machinery trying its best, it is important that those efforts are complemented with individual efforts too.