Provinces agree to new NPIs for Omicron

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Monday decided to implement a new set of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) within the next 48 hours after consultations with all stakeholders to contain the spike in coronavirus cases across the country.

The forum, which serves as the nerve centre of the government’s unified effort against the pandemic, discussed the NPIs in a meeting, which was also attended by the provincial health and education ministers via video link.

Planning Minister Asad Umar presided over the meeting, which was joined by National Coordinator Maj-Gen Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and while Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan, said a statement issued here.

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The meeting discussed the epidemic curve chart data, national vaccine strategy, disease prevalence across the country and the global and regional trends of Omicron variant. It decided that the new NPIs would be implemented by the provinces in the next 48 hours after consultations with all the stakeholders.

The global and regional trends of Omicron virus also came under discussion, according to the NCOC statement. The provincial ministers informed the meeting about the steps being taken for implementation of the NPIs and Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs). They added that a massive sample testing was being carried out in educational institutions and any decision about them would be taken according to the data.

The forum further decided that the decision about keeping the educational institutions open would be taken on the basis of data of positive cases of various institutions. Meanwhile, the single day tally of new Covid cases continued to hover above 4,000 for the third straight day, as the NCOC reported 4,340 new cases in the last 24 hours, up from 4,027 a day earlier. The national poisitivity ratio also rose to 8.7%.