An Assessment of the Smart COVID-19 Approach to Lockdown and its Empirical Evidence

COVID-19 is a new and contagious disease that has changed human lifestyle and habits globally according to the directions provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). Until some authentic remedy or vaccine becomes available, every country is providing instructions to its public to follow precautionary measures. These measures may include lockdown, social distancing, restricting movement, and educating public about COVID-19. Lockdown is the most applied and successful way to control the virus spread and it remains helpful in curtailing the spike. However, it adversely affects developing countries like Pakistan. All types of lockdown disrupt the life of the poor and the middle class. In this paper, an intelligentsmart approach is suggested for developing countries as against complete lockdown to handle the pandemic. This approach will show long-term results needed for controlling COVID-19 without creating any major disturbance in the economy. In this paper, evidence based approaches were used to evaluate the short-term and long-term effects of the daily increasing number of cases of COVIDResearch Data Centre, Pakistan School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey Faculty of Informatics and Computing, Universiti Sultan Zainul Abideen, Malaysia Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Department of Health Informatics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark Universiti Sultan Zainul Abideen, Malaysia Karakoram International University, Pakistan Corresponding author: munir.mubbasher@gmail.com


Introduction
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a set of diseases related to different types of coronaviruses reported in the last two decades (Zhou et al., 2020). A new wave of the epidemic started on December 12, 2019, in the city of Wuhan, China by a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which is a new virus in the same SARS-CoV family (Zhou et al., 2020). Its spread was initially linked with a seafood wholesale market where a large number of patients with pneumonia were reported (CDC, 2020b). Its first structural analysis put it like 85% identical with SARS-CoV and closer to coronaviruses already found in bats (CDC, 2020b). It can cause different diseases related to the respiratory system ranging from the common cold to severe SARS (Masuda & Holme, 2013). The most common symptoms of COVID-19 include nausea, hypotension, vomiting, severe asthenia, neuralgia, myalgia, headache, olfactory, gustatory dysfunction, fever, worsening acute cough, dyspnea, and pneumonia (Poloni et al., 2020). The symptoms of COVID-19 are similar to the symptoms of influenza, so patients suffering from influenza may get infected with COVID-19 (Dua, Javana, Nugenta, Cowlingb, & Meyers, 2020). There may be no apparent symptoms initially but within 3-6 days of the incubation period  the patient begins to show actual symptoms. It slowly makes the respiratory system non-functional and finally leads to death (Zhou et al., 2020). It was declared as a pandemic respiratory disease that can be transmitted from person to person (CDC, 2020a;CDC, 2020b) and can only be controlled by following precautionary measures suggested by (WHO, 2020).

Empirical Economic Review
Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 In Pakistan, the number of new cases was increasing rapidly during May and June. The overall trend of cases in Pakistan on August 17, 2020, is shown in Table 1, with the region wise daily cases, deaths, and recoveries during the last months of the pandemic. Table 1 shows that the Sindh province has 94.8% recovery rate which is the maximum recovery rate, while Gilgit-Baltistan has a minimum recovery rate of 85.58%.  The polynomial model explains that cases are increasing on a daily basis but the curve shows a decreasing trend after June 2020. It shows that total cases in Pakistan are 289,832 with 2.14% death 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 3/13/2020 4/13/2020 5/13/2020 6/13/2020 7/13/2020 8/13/2020

Daily Cases of COVID 19
Department of Economics Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 rate and 93.15% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). COVID-19 transmission was first reported in Pakistan when Pakistani pilgrims were forced to return from Iran and the situation was mismanaged in many ways. At the Taftan border, where more than 3000 pilgrims were kept in miserable conditions without any medical support ("Squalid Taftan quarantine camps," 2020). The government shifted them to other provinces without any planning which caused the transmission of the virus throughout the country. Figure 2 shows the number of monthly cases in Pakistan. It shows that June was the most affected month from Covid-19 and maximum patients were infected during this month.

Figure 2. Region wise monthly cases of Covid-19 in Pakistan
The government imposed a complete lockdown without preparation on March 15, 2020 for three weeks which had a significant economic impact. Rather than strictly following the lockdown policy, after two weeks various businesses were allowed to operate partially. After one week, the government revised its decision and announced smart lockdown in specified localities where infections were occurring (Rukh, Nafees, & Khan, 2020b). This reversal in the reopening policy indicated the lack of seriousness by the government in controlling the spread of the virus. From Fig. 1, it is concluded that there has been no benefit of more than a month long lockdown in Pakistan due to mismanagement and 0.00 500.00 1000.00 1500.00 2000.00 Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 various lockdown violations. It also shows 8,825 new cases on June 13, 2020 which remains the highest single day figure in Pakistan.
The implementation of lockdown during a pandemic is not an easy decision to make. It would be effective only if it is planned properly. In Pakistan, the implementation of lockdown was not a strategically wise decision because of the slow economy, low earnings, high inflation, and a diversified social structure. The life of the poor was greatly affected and it would not be restored even after a year. COVID-19 has affected Pakistan severely and the lockdown has further intensified this adverse situation (Chohan, 2020).
Instead of complete lockdown, the smart lockdown was proposed by (Raza et al., 2020) which constitutes selective lockdown in the infected areas only (Abdullah, ul Islam, Mehmud, & Qazi, 2020). It is a beneficial strategy as compared to complete lockdown ("Coronavirus in Pakistan", 2020). In this paper, an intelligent-smart approach is suggested which is a combination of smart-lockdown, business SOPs, relief package, and the healthcare system.

Objectives of the Study
The objectives of this study are as follows: 1) To investigate the incidences of COVID-19 across the administrative regions of Pakistan. 2) To investigate the use of an intelligent-smart approach instead of complete lockdown.
Section 2 reviews the literature about controlling the pandemic situation. The proposed intelligent-smart approach is discussed instead of complete lockdown in Section 3. Results and discussion are given in Section 4.

Literature Review
A pandemic is caused by an infectious disease that can put human health at risk and normally spreads over social networks of people or animals. The effects of infectious diseases can be controlled by restricting interaction among people (Masuda & Holme, 2013). The epidemic of African cassava mosaic disease in 1988, caused by Department of Economics Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 whitefly-transmitted geminivirus in Uganda, was controlled by implementing appropriate technologies to control the disease (Otim-Nape, Bua, & Baguma, 1994). Epidemics could be effectively controlled using proper quarantine, screening, and health promotion campaigns (Behncke, 2001). Intensive testing, isolation, and limiting contacts were used as measures to control the transmission of COVID-19 in Singapore and Hong Kong, whereas countries without testing experienced greater spread of the virus. Social distancing slows down the virus spread and indirectly reduces the risk of collapsing the healthcare system (Kissler, Tedijanto, Lipsitch, & Grad, 2020). Fear and discrimination increase anxiety, uneasiness, and unsafe feelings, so removing them will constitute frontline defense against COVID-19 (Ren & Chen, 2020).
Complete lockdown is used to control an epidemic in a certain situation, such as the Wuhan lockdown was useful in controlling the spread of the virus to other parts of the country. However, intensive screening and social distancing must be implemented to control the local spread (Peng, Liu, Ni, Cui, & Du 2020). A strict one-month lockdown in France showed an 83% reduction in predicated deaths, whereas 23% of the French population was infected by the novel coronavirus before March 19, 2020 (Roux, Massonnaud, & Crepey, 2020). So, the effectiveness of the lockdown largely depends upon the intensity of the virus spread and planned activities. In Malaysia, the government adopted a limited lockdown approach to control COVID-19 without planning and it resulted in socioeconomic disruption (Salim et al., 2020). Sardar, Nadim, Rana, & Chattopadhyay (2020) mentioned the effect of lockdown in various states of India and suggested lockdown only in case of a higher mortality rate. If lockdown is required in case of a higher mortality rate or due to an increasing number of positive cases then it must be pre-planned; otherwise, it will affect adversely the economy and human welfare (Umoh, et al., 2020). Lockdown is a period needed to prepare the health care system to understand the clinical methods used to treat the patients effectively; otherwise, there will be no benefit of lockdown in the future (Wilder-Smith & Freedman, 2020).

Empirical Economic Review
Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 Smart lockdown is an effective solution for developing countries. In the case of Pakistan, it yielded fruitful results while balancing the situation caused by the spread of COVID-19 and the concerns regarding the economy (Asghar, Batool, Farooq, & Rehman, 2020). After relinquishing complete lockdown, it would be a wise strategy to adopt smart lockdown to revive the economy (Vega, 2020).
With the end of lockdown in various countries after a decreasing number of cases, the second and third waves of COVID-19 have been observed in the United States (Solis, Franco-Paredes, Henao-Martínez, Krsak, & Zimmer, 2020), South Korea, Iran, and Italy (Strzelecki, 2020).

Intelligent-smart Approach
It is a combination of smart lockdown with certain SOPs to allow people to operate businesses following certain techniques to control COVID-19, as complete lockdown would not be feasible in the context of Pakistan (Farooq, Khan, & Khan, 2020). The government allows some businesses to operate during smart lockdown (Mahmood, 2020). In this section, different techniques are discussed to implement this approach and its success depends upon its accurate implementation.

Why an Intelligent-smart Approach?
There are several reasons to implement the proposed intelligentsmart approach against complete lockdown.

Social norms and living style.
Pakistan had a population of 212.82 million in 2018 (Ministry of Finance, 2019) and it is included in the most populous countries of the world. Population density at 275.29 persons per square kilometer is much more in Pakistan than that of the United States, where it is only 35.76 persons per square kilometer (World Bank, 2018). The living style is mostly family based, with 6.45-6.89 persons living under the same roof in 2017 (Rana, 2017). So, community containment is not possible for a long period and it becomes difficult to restrict a large number of people in small size homes. Community containment proved to be an effective way to combat the COVID-19 spread in Department of Economics Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 China although it is not easy to implement on a large population. It includes avoiding public and social gatherings, restricting public movement, applying lockdown, wearing a face mask, and adopting work-from-home policy (Wilder-Smith & Freedman, 2020). It rapidly impacted the mortality rate and return benefits in monetary terms in the United States; however, in Pakistan, various social norms hinder such measures (Greenstone & Nigam, 2020). People always like social gatherings and mostly hug and shake hands (Barrech, 2020). Grandparents hug and make close contacts with children which is the major reason behind the high incidence of COVID-19 cases in older people. Indeed, 41% of deaths in Italy are reported to be of people aged 80 years or above (Poloni et al., 2020). Maintaining six feet distance recommended by WHO (WHO, 2020) is not an easy task to implement in a crowd and several challans have been issued due to the violation of COVID-19 regulations (Mahmood, 2020).

Relief package for population living below the poverty line.
In Pakistan, more than 24.3% of the population was still living below the national poverty line in 2015-16 (Ministry of Finance, 2016). Therefore, it would be difficult to cope with the situation of lockdown. The number of people living below the poverty line will increase in developing countries due to COVID-19 (World Bank, 2020).
In Pakistan, the average monthly income was 18,754 PKR in 2018 (CEIC, 2019), whereas in the United States it was $3714 in 2017 on average (Luther, 2018). The average household per capita income was $650.64 in 2016, whereas household per capita expenditure was $594.72 which shows little saving (Christie, 2014).
It would become difficult for the government to provide support to those affected because of lockdown and living below the severe poverty line. Developing countries can provide only a small amount as relief package. The federal government of the United States announced $484bn (Roberts, 2020), whereas the government of Pakistan announced 14bn rupees in the form of a relief package providing 12,000 rupees per month to people living below the severe poverty line (Nishtar, 2020;Rukh, Nafees, & Khan, 2020b). This Empirical Economic Review Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 small relief package would never be able to retain people within their homes, as it cannot cover their household expenditures.

Business shutdown.
All businesses except food manufacturers and suppliers were locked entirely which immediately squeezed all surplus resources. Therefore, these businesses will be affected due to the novel coronavirus and there would be an increase in unemployment from 5.8% to 8.1% in the next 18 months (Siddiqui, 2020). After a one-week lockdown, they had to run their businesses by violating lockdown as no relief package was given to them. Tourism was severely affected without any tourist activity (Rukh, Khan, & Nafees, 2020a).
Pakistan's economy largely depends upon small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and cottage industries. SMEs which represented 90% of all private businesses and held 78% of non-agricultural employment in 2005 (Dar, Ahmed, & Raziq, 2017) were affected mostly due to lockdown. Their workers are normally daily wagers. Even the owners of SMEs have limited capital that can sustain them for a few days only. Seven million daily wagers were affected by the lockdown (Nafees & Khan, 2020) which resulted in large scale unemployment (Siddiqui, 2020). Some organizations laid off their employees to reduce cost without regarding the decision of SBP which allows them to borrow at 6% to pay salaries due to the fact that most of these businesses are not income tax filers ("SMEs, markets want relaxation," 2020).

Brick-and-mortar business.
E-commerce, as a solution to do business in lockdown, is in its initial stage in Pakistan due to limited facilities and government support (Ahmad, 2017). A large part of the economy is based on brick-and-mortar businesses, so it becomes difficult to perform business activities during lockdown. Online businesses in Pakistan are mostly click-and-mortar, which were also affected because of lockdown.

Shortage of food and high cost of living.
The availability of food is not possible for a long period without violating the quarantine. Due to lockdown, the production of food items and the supply chain system remain severely affected. Lockdown in Tokyo, Japan affected the entire economy of Japan. More than 80% decline in production is expected in the city after a one-month lockdown, Department of Economics Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 which will also affect the regions without lockdown (Inoue & Yasuyuki, 2020).
The inflation rate in Pakistan is already 12.93% which leads to price hikes amid the already declining earnings of the people due to the lockdown (Javed, 2020). The slow growing economy of Pakistan which was growing only at 3.3% annually (Ministry of Finance, 2019) will be further disturbed due to lockdown. The demand for different products has increased tremendously in the current situation, so vendors are charging higher prices.
3.2.6. Religion. Due to local norms and because of the involvement of religious associations in applying the rules for mosques in Pakistan, the government has little control over religious places. So, the chances of disease transmission are higher in mosques and at other religious places.
3.2.7. Psychological factor. The uncertain COVID-19 situation increases the stress level, confusion, and frustration (Mukhtar, 2020). It becomes more critical for students and nearly 50% of them are affected due to the high stress level (Raja et al., 2020). People in Pakistan think differently as compared to most people in advanced countries. They do not believe in the government and refrain from following the SOPs due to the gap between the rulers and the public (Barrech, 2020).

Components of an Intelligent-Smart Approach
The working of the proposed intelligent-smart approach depends upon various components described in this section.

Smart lockdown.
The main component of the intelligentsmart approach is smart lockdown, which is a way to lockdown those localities where positive cases are increasing rapidly. Businesses including cottage industries and SMEs must follow the SOPs designed by the government to perform business activities (Asghar et al., 2020). People are allowed to move while wearing a face mask and keeping social distance. Pakistan successfully imposed smart lockdown in 227 different locations in major cities ("Pakistan's 30 cities", 2020).

Educate the public.
To educate and train people to face the COVID-19 situation is the most effective element of an Empirical Economic Review Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 intelligent-smart approach. It is important to provide proper information about coronavirus and the cause of its spread, as well as adopting cleanliness and following SOPs to conduct business. Instructions should be given to avoid crowded areas while maintaining the recommended distance and wearing a face mask. People should show patience instead of creating panic. It is important to train people about handling COVID-19 patients and to know that it is a recoverable disease as nearly 97% of COVID-19 patients recovered in Pakistan (MNHS, 2020).

Understand social distancing and quarantine.
Social distancing must be implemented to avoid close contacts to curtail virus transmission and to maintain the recommended distance while performing business operations. It would be a better strategy than a complete lockdown. It is important to isolate the COVID-19 positive people from the rest of the populace to avoid its transmission, so the concept of quarantine becomes crucial to identify and treat patients effectively. Self-quarantine is only preferable if one feels mild symptoms; otherwise, the government managed quarantine centers must be preferred.

Religion.
In most religions, collective worship is preferable. However, Islam allows one to pray at home instead of mosques when there is heavy rain or storm (Sahih Muslim, 97: 1487-1495. Islam obligates prayer five times a day with the complementary practice of wudu which includes the washing of face, hands and feet. Moreover, the Holy Prophet induced cleanliness as half of the faith of a Muslim (Sahih Muslim, 97: 1487-1495. So, performing prayer five times a day will help to eliminate the novel coronavirus; otherwise, one must follow the hand-wash instructions given by WHO (WHO, 2020). Strict SOPs must also be followed while performing religious activities.

Extending hospital capacity.
In developing countries hospitals are already working at their full capacity, so they cannot handle the spike in the number of patients due to the novel coronavirus. Germany failed to overcome COVID-19 despite having the highest number of ICU beds in the world (Becher & Frerichs, 2020). It is also difficult to provide fully isolated wards and quarantine centers. One must keep in mind the limits of Department of Economics Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 hospitals, so self-care becomes the core element of the treatment. Hospitals must follow social distancing to effectively reduce the mortality rate, as (Wilder-Smith & Freedman, 2020) recommend to extend the capacity of hospitals and medical facilities. Hospitals must be equipped with the proper equipment and given authority to order the necessary equipment if needed.
3.3.6. Intensive testing. It should be performed without any discrimination on an urgent basis to identify COVID-19 patients. It would be better to provide free testing facilities to the public at large to avoid the hidden risk of COVID-19 (Ai et al., 2020). Bhutan performed the highest number of tests in South Asia; therefore, there have been fewer cases in Bhutan as compared to India and Pakistan which implemented lockdown strategies without intensive testing (Fliegauf & Ayres, 2020).

Better implementation of relief package.
The relief package must be managed properly by transferring money to the needy. It would be better to distribute its benefits to all by cutting off utility bills, relaxing bank interest, and providing free testing. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) offered a one-year moratorium on loan schemes during which the banks are eligible only to receive markup and not the principal amount, although it would be better to receive the actual capital instead of the markup. SBP also offered 6% loans to organizations paying taxes, although it would be better to give interest free loans without any discrimination. Due to these relief packages, government debt will increase in the coming months (Asghar et al., 2020). However, it would be compensated by international COVID-19 aid.

Release tension.
It is important to release tension and relieve the psychological stress experienced by the population at large by making people aware that COVID-19 is a curable disease (Mukhtar, 2020). So, people with positive symptoms must come forward to quarantine themselves instead of hiding it. They must be educated about its psychological and behavioral effects. People should be absolved from the fear of the non-availability of hospitals and psychological support should be provided to infected families (Banerjee, 2020).

Empirical Economic Review
Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 3.3.9. Centralized information source. It is also important to have a centralized information source available to share precautionary measures and valid information about COVID-19 with healthcare practitioners to avoid misinformation and to reduce their stress level while treating patients (Mukhtar, 2020). It should also provide standardized guidelines about isolation, selfquarantine, social distancing, and safety measures. The government has already created a National Command and Control Centre (NCCC) about COVID-19. Moreover, it also imposed restrictions on news channels to transmit only the information provided by NCCC to the general public.

Encourage online business.
A major change due to COVID-19 is the way of doing business. Indeed, a traditional brickand-mortar type of business is not easy to operate due to business SOPs. It is necessary to conduct all business operations through online networks. Digital business operations are possible in the lockdown. Otherwise, click-and-mortar types of businesses must be implemented. Educational institutes are teaching their students through online collaboration tools. Software houses, call centers, and TV channels are conducting their businesses by following workat-home policy.

Data Source
To analyze the effect of COVID-19 in Pakistan, the collected data includes the number of new cases, number of deaths, and the number of recoveries on a daily basis from March 13, 2020 to August 17, 2020. The data was downloaded from the COVID-19 Health Advisory web site (MNHS, 2020).

Descriptive and Inferential Statistics
Descriptive statistics include measures of location and measures of dispersion which are reliable tools to check central tendency and variations within the data. Graphical presentations were used to see the increasing and decreasing trends of the COVID-19 cases regionwise as well as month-wise. Several statistical techniques were performed through inferential statistics like polynomial models, correlation, and covariance analysis. In these cases, several situations have a linear equation between two variables that would Department of Economics Volume 3 Issue 2, Winter 2020 be optimal for the relationship to be used. However, there are also several cases in which, rather than linear, the relationship between two variables will be curvilinear. The fluctuation, for instance, raises the cases in the regions of coronavirus patients.
Models with nonlinear interactions are more complex than models that exhibit only linear interactions. While complicated models are often appropriate, for many reasons, decision makers should use them with caution. For Instance, the model Eq. 3.1 displays polynomial models of the second order for various areas of Pakistan. While polynomials of all order occur in many fields, polynomials of the second order are probably the most common in the literature. The second degree polynomial models output is given in table 5. Table 2 shows that Sindh province has more cases on average. Moreover, it shows a high variation in the data. The total number of patients is 289,832 (MNHS, 2020), which is the highest number of patients region wise in Pakistan, with 2.14% mortality rate and 93.15% recovery rate. Punjab province was found to have the second highest number of cases in Pakistan with 92.94% recovery rate and 2.29% mortality rate. Fig 3 shows the overall variation of Covid-19 cases in Pakistan region wise. The decreasing trend of Punjab province is more visible as compared to other regions.  Figure 3 shows the comparison between all administrative regions of Pakistan and it shows that the number of active cases in Punjab is decreasing more rapidly as compared to other regions. Table 3 explains the variance and covariance for cases in all regions of Pakistan which shows that the patients travel from one region to another, frequently. Punjab and Sindh have the maximum number of patients which means that Covid-19 patients have greater interaction with the healthy population of these two regions. GB and AJK have relatively fewer cases of COVID-19 because of limited interaction with other regions and restricted movement of their people.

Estimation and Results
The correlation coefficients of these regions are shown in Table  4 which clearly explains the relationship between different regions of Pakistan. Punjab and Sindh have a more significant and positive relationship with each other and they impact the rest of the country significantly. The weakest relationship is between AJK and GB and these regions do not impact the rest of the country significantly.

COVID-19 in Pakistan
Overall, the cases of COVID-19 are increasingly decreasing in Pakistan. Pakistan is performing better because of the decreasing trend in the daily number of cases of the novel coronavirus, although in the long run, the polynomial line in Fig 4 shows

Punjab
Current COVID-19 data shows that the situation of Punjab is critical. The following Figure 5 shows that the number of daily cases of COVID-19 in the province is increasing. However, the situation of COVID-19 would be under control in near future as in the long run the polynomial line shows the curve moving downwards. This is a good sign since it predicts that the province with the largest population will have a decreasing number of COVID-19 cases in the coming months. The polynomial model in Fig 5 shows that cases are increasing on a daily basis but the curve is bending.
Punjab has a greater ability to control and overcome the pandemic situation. Data shows that total cases in the region are 95,611 which is 32.99% of total cases in Pakistan. It is also the second highest number of cases with 2.26% death rate and 92.94% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). The recovery rate from COVID-19 in Punjab is the second highest in the country which forecasts considerable improvement in the current situation regarding COVID-19 in the region.

Sindh
The second largest province of Pakistan also depicts an increasing trend of cases of COVID-19. The polynomial line shows that cases are on a threshold and are expected to decrease as well. The polynomial curve in Fig 6 shows the decreasing trend of the daily cases in the long-run. The government of Sindh is also working hard to control the virus spread using complete lockdown but the situation is worsening due to more cases on a daily basis. The total number of cases in the province is 126,425, which is 37.66% of the total cases in Pakistan, with 1.84% mortality rate and 94.8% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). The results show the highest percentage of COVID-19 cases, the fastest recovery rate, and the lowest mortality rate among the various regions of Pakistan.

Balochistan
Balochistan is also affected by COVID-19 with instant fluctuations in its cases and a downward trend. The polynomial curve in Fig 7 shows the decreasing trend of cases on a daily basis. The total number of cases in the region is 12,321, which is 4.25% of the total cases in Pakistan, with 1.12% mortality rate and 90.52% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). The results show that the government of Balochistan should focus on improving the quality of administrative work to improve the recovery rate and to lower the mortality rate.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fares well in controlling the COVID-19. The results show that cases are reducing on a daily basis and the polynomial trend in Fig 8 shows the curve moving downwards.
The government of KPK is also working hard to overcome the pandemic situation. The total number of cases in the region is 35,337, which is 20.02% of the total cases in Pakistan, with 3.51% mortality rate and 92.03% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). The results show that the highest percentage of deaths due to COVID-19 is in KPK.

Gilgit-Baltistan
Fortunately, Gilgit-Baltistan is less affected in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan. The total number of cases in the region is 2,538, which is 0.98% of the total cases in Pakistan, with 2.4% mortality rate and 85.58% recovery rate. It is the lowest recovery rate among all the regions of Pakistan.

Azad Jammu and Kashmir
Azad Jammu and Kashmir also show an increasing number of daily cases of COVID-19. However, the polynomial curve in Fig 10 shows a declining trend in the long-run, which shows that the number of cases may decline in the near future. Figure 10. COVID-19 incidence curve of Azad Jammu and Kashmir AJK has strived a lot to overcome the pandemic situation. The total number of cases in the region is 2,199, which is 0.76% of the total cases in Pakistan, with 2.77% mortality rate and 91.04% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). The results show a good percentage of recovery and a low mortality rate during the last six months in the AJK region.

Islamabad
The increasing number of daily cases of COVID-19 in the capital of Pakistan is an alarming sign. The polynomial curve shows upward recoveries as compared to others a which depicts an increasing number of cases in June and July but the trend is moving downwards in the long-run as shown in Fig 11. The total number of cases in the capital is 15,401, which is 5.31% of the total cases in Pakistan, with 1.14% mortality rate and 87.20% recovery rate (MNHS, 2020). The results show a slow recovery as well as a low mortality rate in comparison with other regions of Pakistan during the last six months. The same is concluded by (Asghar et al., 2020) regarding the implementation of smart lockdown in Pakistan. Figure 11. COVID-19 incidence curve of Islamabad  Table 5 shows the polynomial models of all the regions of Pakistan. It shows the non-linear effect of the novel coronavirus cases in these regions. The results reveal the decreasing number of patients during the first wave of Covid-19. All the slops of variable (X) for Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, KPK, GB, AJK, and ICT are positive which shows the direct and increasing effect of COVID-19 cases in the various regions of Pakistan. All the above slops of X 2 are in the negative, so the COVID-19 cases are decreasing in these regions since August 2020 but a second wave is expected (Solis et al., 2020).

Conclusion and Discussion
SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus that is not easy to control in most cases. The current medical facilities are not enough to deal with it all over the world, as in Italy where all medical resources are already overutilized and the next patient has to wait for the death or the recovery of an existing patient. The situation of COVID-19 in Pakistan is also critical due to the high number of daily cases. Evidence based approaches are used to evaluate short-term and long-term effects due to the daily increasing number of cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan. The results showed that Sindh did well in implementing smart lockdown with more recoveries as compared to other administrative regions of Pakistan. The result of polynomial models shows the numbers of COVID-19 cases are increasing rapidly in the short-run in Punjab, Sindh, and KPK, which are the most populous regions of Pakistan, and they will adversely impact COVID-19 cases in other administrative regions. So, without following proper lockdown along with other preventive strategies discussed in this paper, there will a chance of an uncontrollable increase of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan. It was already observed in the United States (Solis et al., 2020) and France (Roux, Massonnaud, & Crepey, 2020). Most countries followed the complete lockdown strategy, although it is not a wise strategy for developing countries where percapita income is much less than developed countries and the number of persons living below the poverty line is considerably more. Complete lockdown will adversely affect the economy of these countries and will increase the difficulties for the poor, whereas smart lockdown is effective without disturbing the economy. So, an intelligent-smart approach to handle the COVID-19 situation is an effective, desirable, and long-term solution which emphasizes educating people, maintaining social distancing, relief package, and business SOPs as well as a smart lockdown. In the initial stage, there may be more positive cases, although later it will effectively reduce the number of active cases as well as the mortality rate. COVID-19 situation in Pakistan is under control now although there is a risk of its second wave as second and third waves of COVID-19 have already occurred in the United States (Solis et al., 2020). However, it can be avoided by following the proposed approach before time.