Govt decides to further boost anti-Covid measures

The government decided on Friday to strengthen the anti-Covid measures at the airports in the wake of the emergence of fast-spreading Omicron variant of coronavirus that had stoked fresh wave of panic across the globe.

It is learnt that the authorities plan a full screening of the passengers, arriving at the airports across the country from abroad, including rapid Covid tests at the airports for passengers coming from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq.

According to officials, the government is also mulling over reviving the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test at the airport, which had been cancelled after the pandemic situation eased in the country a few weeks ago.

They added that passengers coming to Pakistan from Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia would undergo a PCR test at the airport, adding that the tests would resume after approval from the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

The new measures would follow a decision of the NCOC last week to ban inbound travel from seven countries or territories, where Omicron had been detected, including Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Hong Kong.

Simultaneously with the travel restrictions, the NCOC – the nerve centre of the government’s anti-pandemic strategy – also decided to step up Covid-19 vaccination efforts, including expansion of the criteria for vaccine booster shots.

Read More: NCOC extends anti-Covid curbs to 27 cities

On November 26, the World Health Organization (WHO) designated B.1.1.529 variant as Omicron, and declared it a “variant of concern”, following evidence presented by the Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) suggested that it had several mutations.

Hailing South Africa decision to report the appearance of the Omicron coronavirus mutation, the UN health agency repeated on Friday that it would take another two weeks before more was known about how transmissible and how dangerous Omicron actually was.

The WHO said it had not seen any reports of deaths relating to Omicron variant, adding that it was collecting evidence about the “variant of concern”, as countries around the world scramble to stop it from spreading. It urged the countries not to panic but to prepare for its likely spread.

Speaking in Geneva, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier stressed that data suggesting that Omicron was highly transmissible was only preliminary. He also repeated WHO advice against blanket travel bans, except for countries whose health systems were unable to withstand a surge in infections.

The UN agency had said on Thursday it was sending a technical team to South Africa’s Gauteng province to monitor Omicron and help with contract tracing, amid a spike in coronavirus reinfections. For the seven days leading to November 30, South Africa reported a 311% increase in new cases.