'Work from home, ban on indoor weddings’, fresh Covid restrictions issued

The government has ordered work-from-home policy for half of the staff in both public and private sector offices and relatively broader smart lockdowns in the urban centres of the country as part of the second phase of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) – the nerve centre of the government’s unified efforts to stem Covid-19 spread – has also banned indoor wedding gatherings from November 20, as the new cases of the viral disease continued to rise.

According to an NCOC statement issued on Friday, the second phase of precautionary measures would be imposed in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Hyderabad, Gilgit, Muzzafarabad, Mirpur, Peshawar, Quetta, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Abbottabad.

Terming them the “Non Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI)”, the NCOC said that these measures would “remain in force till 31 January 2021,” in the “major cities with high positivity and higher disease spread potential”.

It said that the implementation of the second phase of the NPIs would be implemented along with the first phase of the NPIs.

This included the “policy of ‘work from home’ for 50% of the staff in all public/private offices, and “relatively broader smart lockdowns (SLDs) based on hotspot areas”.

The statement said that “only outdoor marriages [will be] allowed with upper limit of 1,000 persons (to be implemented with effect from 20 Nov 2020)”, adding that supplementary details were being issued separately.

The NCOC also ordered the implementation of Gilgit-Baltistan model of the enforcement of wearing masks from Saturday (Nov 7). Accordingly, any person not wearing mask will be fined with Rs100 and issued three masks on the spot.

Supplementing the NCOC measures, the Karachi administrator issued fresh standard operating procedures (SOPs), making the wearing of mask mandatory at public places – and ordered a fine of up to Rs500 in case of violation.

Covid-19 first emerged in the country in February this year and hit a peak in mid-June. However, it started to decline in the following months but surged again in the last month, prompting the government to issue warning of the second wave.

Since last week, the number of single-day new cases had crossed 1,000 mark for the first time since the first week of August. According to the NCOC daily bulletin on Friday, 1,376 more people tested positive for the deadly virus, while 30 patients lost their lives, during the last 24 hours.

Last month, NCOC had said that it has observed wedding halls and indoor restaurants to be "high contributors" to the spread of the contagious disease. On October 9, the forum issued new guidelines for wedding halls, restricting the number of guests and limiting functions till 10pm.

The NCOC’s latest measures come three days after Prime Minister Imran Khan chaired separate meetings of the federal cabinet and the National Coordination Committee (NCC) on Covid-19 and endorsed the recommendations of the NCOC to control the second wave of the pandemic.

Saying that the country could not afford another lockdown, the prime minister called for ensuring a balance between disease control measures and livelihood of the people and urged provinces to ensure implementation of the trace, test and quarantine (TTQ) and smart lockdown strategies.

Separately, the NCOC said in its daily bulletin that total active Covid cases in Pakistan rose to 16,242 as of Saturday. It added that 17 people died in Sindh, 5 in Punjab, 3 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 2 in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and 3 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Thursday.