Lockdown in 24 districts as Covid wave intensifies

The government on Friday announced lockdown in 24 districts, including the federal capital, where all private and public educational institutions were closed for a week as the ongoing fourth wave of coronavirus pandemic intensified.

The decision to impose lockdown in 15 districts of Punjab, 8 of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) for the next week was taken in a meeting of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) held at the Prime Minister House.

Following the meeting, the Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PERA) and the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) issued separate notifications announcing that all educational institutions in Islamabad would remain closed from September 6 to September 11.

Earlier, an NCOC team led by its chairperson and Planning Minister Asad Umar briefed Prime Minister Imran Khan about the rising trend in Covid-19 cases and the facilities of the Intensive Care Units in hospitals in various districts.

The meeting also reviewed the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) of specific districts. It was decided that additional NPIs would be implemented in specific districts from September 4 to 12 in order to decrease the spread of disease.

Accordingly, during the next week all educational institutions would remain closed, inter-city transportation among the districts with high spread of coronavirus cases would be shut, while all kinds of indoor and outdoor functions would be banned.

The NPIs had been imposed in the ICT, Sargodha, Khushab, Mianwali, Rahimyar Khan, Khanewal, Faisalabad, Bhakkar, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Multan, Bahawalpur, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Sialkot and Sheikhupura in Punjab, and Haripur, Malakand, Mansehra, Sawabi, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat, Abbotabad and Peshawar districts.

Meanwhile, announcing the closure of schools in light of the NCOC decision, PERA Chairperson Zia Batool said that federal board examinations, would, however, continue with strict compliance of the Covid-induced standard operating procedures (SOPs).

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The country is in the grip of the fourth Covid wave fuelled by the Indian-origin Delta variant of coronavirus. Asad Umar had said on Thursday that the number of hospitalisation of the infected patients had reached the highest level in the country.

The NCOC, which is the government’s unified strategy against the global pandemic, said in its daily update on Friday that the country’s death toll from infectious disease surpassed 26,000, while 5,606 patients were still in critical care in various Covid-dedicated health facilities across the country.

According to the daily bulletin, the national tally of active Covid cases came down to 90,133 from 92,941 a day ago, as 3,787 more people tested positive for the disease during the past 24 hours, while 6,595 patients made full recovery. It added that the national positivity ratio was recorded at 6.34%.

The forum also said that 89 patients died in hospitals during the past 24 hours, raising the nationwide death toll to 26,0235. The national caseload of the disease soared to 1,171,578, with most cases reported from Punjab. So far, 1,055,469 have made full recovery, depicting a significant recovery ratio of 97.58%

(WITH INPUT FROM APP)