COVID couldn’t hit hard Bangladesh for govt’s prompt actions: PM

GBNEWS24DESK//

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the Covid-19 pandemic couldn’t hit hard her country due to the government’s prompt actions to protect most vulnerable people and businesses.

“Bangladesh could have fallen prey to COVID-19 but we acted fast to protect both our most vulnerable people and businesses. As a result, the pandemic did not hit Bangladesh as hard as other countries,” she wrote in an article
published in New York based famous magazine FORTUNE on Monday, reports BSS.

Following is the full article by Sheikh Hasina:

Bangladesh Prime Minister: We rise from COVID-19 by helping the neediest first

Bangladesh could have fallen prey to COVID-19 but we acted fast to protect both our most vulnerable people and businesses. As a result, the pandemic did not hit Bangladesh as hard as other countries. We are emerging from the pandemic in a good position to continue the economic resurgence that began a decade ago.

Our approach to fighting COVID-19 was to balance lives and livelihoods, focusing on the needs of people first and then assisting the businesses that employed them.

At the very start of the pandemic last year, the government offered relief to the ultra-poor, the disabled, seniors, migrants, and impoverished women. We quickly distributed cash and other types of assistance to 40 million
people, a quarter of the population. This came in the form of 28 separate stimulus programs totaling $22.1 billion-nearly 6.2% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We spent billions of additional dollars on vaccines and other
emergency measures.

People continue to be at the heart of everything we do, whatever the Omicron variant brings. The government instituted a “No One Will Go Hungry” policy that provided rice, baby food, and cash to 16.8 million families. We
targeted payments to the aged, the disabled, and deserted and destitute women. We expanded a program inaugurated prior to the pandemic to build houses for the homeless to commemorate the centenary of the birth of my father-the founding father of the nation and its first president-Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The program contributed immensely to our fight against the disease.