KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – The Pakistani government is encouraging others to buy slaughter animals online or at least wear a mask when visiting cattle markets, fearing that arrangements for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha may be opposed to the decline in COVID-19 infections. .
Government restrictions on social estrangement this year, coupled with the close-up of part per day, have led to a drop in the number of consumers in bustling markets that, as in other Muslim countries, are set up in urban centres before one of Islam’s vital highest festivals. .
The main farm animal market in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, was less crowded on Sunday than in previous years, just six days before the festivities, Reuters told witnesses. Trader Allah Ditta, who has traveled many miles to sell his shares, told Reuters that his consumers had almost halved.
Most visitors ignored the requirement to wear masks, and many were accompanied by banned youth this year.
“I don’t perceive this coronavirus. I didn’t see him die,” the merchant Muhammad Akram said. “Look around you: no one wears a mask.”
Pakistan has reported more than 270,000 cases of COVID-19 with nearly 6,000 deaths. Daily instances of new infection were just under 1,200 on Sunday, compared to a peak last month of 7,000 around the Eid al-Fitr festival.
“Over the past 4 weeks, there has been a significant slowdown in the spread of the pandemic, with an 80% drop in deaths,” Health Minister Zafar Mirza said On Sunday three weeks after the COVID-19 positive.
“The last Eid, since the rallies were higher, other people have traveled, and this interaction has more cases,” Mizra said. “People take it very seriously and act respa financially. There is a possibility that instances will re-emerge, as in Spain.”
As market visitors have fallen, more and more people are paying for charities to sacrifice livestock on their behalf and deliver their cuttings or donate them to those in need.
Shakil Dehelvi, co-general secretary of the Alamgir Welfare Trust, said the charity earned its target booking number twice as fast as last year.
Reporting through Syed Raza Hassan; Editing through Christopher Cushing
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