The government has taken different countries' approaches to handling the novel coronavirus before making the decision to ease restrictions, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said in a media conference.

He said that the country's leadership noted that Iran had imposed a lockdown when cases started to rise in the country and introduced relaxations once the number of cases started to recede. Germany and Italy also imposed the lockdown after cases started to peak but now they have started lifting restrictions now that the curve is flattening.

The United States, he noted, was late in making its decision since, by the time a lockdown was imposed, the number of cases in America reported daily had crossed 18,000.

Pakistan, he pointed out, imposed a lockdown as soon as the first case was reported which prevented the curve to take a steep upwards turn.