NCOC issues guidelines for Rabiul Awwal events

Makes it mandatory for naat reciters to be fully vaccinated

ISLAMABAD:

The federal government has issued special instructions for holding Milads and Seeratun Nabi (PBUH) conferences in the month of Rabiul Awwal.

A meeting of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), under the chairmanship of the Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, made it mandatory for religious scholars and naat reciters to be fully vaccinated before attending Rabiul Awwal events.

The NCOC, which serves as the nerve centre of the unified national effort against the global pandemic, suggested that the private media houses hold the events live so that more people could partake in the celebrations without having to physically attend them.

The meeting decided that only licensed and government-approved rallies and events will be allowed.
It urged the organisations concerned to strictly implement the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) throughout the holy month.

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Under the SOPs for milads and other religious events, the venues must be open and spacious where a six-feet distance in the seating arrangement must be ensured.

Events at mosques and other places should have thermal screening, sanitisers, and arrangements for washing hands at the entrances along with strict adherence to face masks. The NCOC also directed people to avoid physical contact with sacred objects.

Meanwhile, the national tally of active Covid-19 cases reduced further to 42,263, as 1,004 more people tested positive for the virus while 1,254 people recovered from the disease during the last 24 hours, the NCOC said.

The NCOC said in its daily update that 28 patients, 27 of them under treatment in different hospitals, including 11 on ventilators, died during the last 24 hours.

According to the NCOC, most of the deaths, 13, occurred in Sindh followed by nine in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). It added that the nationwide death toll from the disease, since its outbreak in February 2020, stood at 28,134.

The national Covid positivity ratio during the last 24 hours was 2.31%, the forum said. At present, 2,563 patients were admitted to various Covid-dedicated healthcare facilities of the country. The forum said that 2,473 patients were in critical care, including 351 on ventilators.

The maximum ventilators occupancy was 82% in Multan, followed by 35% in Sargodha, Peshawar and Lahore. The maximum oxygen beds were occupied in Swabi, Sargodha, Multan and Lahore, according to the NCOC.

As of Monday, the national caseload from the disease stood at 1,258,959, out of which 1,188,562 people have fully recovered from the disease so far, making it a significant count with over 90% recovery ratio of the affected patients.

(With input from APP)