Planning Minister Asad Umar has rejected the implications that a strict lockdown could have erased the novel coronavirus, saying that Covid-19 is a "highly-infectious disease that will continue to spread".

He said that if a lockdown could have ended the virus, at least it would have been proven by at least one country. Umar pointed out that in countries that imposed strict lockdowns to curb the spread, the disease reemerged after restrictions were eased.

"This is not dengue which will go away if we kill mosquitoes," he said, adding that the disease will onlt end once a vaccine is developed.

While addressing the parliament, he declared that Prime Minister Imran Khan had foreseen the impact of a lockdown in the country on poor people and many countries were coming to the same realisation now.