ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), on Friday, lifted one-day mandatory lockdown restriction across the country, allowing businesses activities to operate seven days a week. The decision was taken in the NCOC meeting presided over by the Chairman NCOC Asad Umar.
During the meeting, the situation was reviewed in detail in proportion to the level of vaccination in the districts. The forum decided to lift the mandatory one-day weekly closure across the country, following significant reduction in Covid-19 cases.
The forum has conditionally allowed 300 guests to attend any indoor events including wedding ceremonies, while out-door wedding ceremonies could be attended by up to 500 persons. The NCOC has made Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for attending all such gatherings, more overfully vaccinated people are allowed to visit cinemas and shrines.
The relaxation in the SOPs will continue from October 16 to 31, while the forum would review SOPs in its next meeting on October 28. Earlier, a team of the NCOC along with secretary Regional Transport Authority (RTA) Rawalpindi had distributed masks among drivers and passengers.
The team also impounded several vehicles and arrested transport owners for allowing non-vaccinated passengers to travel in their vehicles. Cases were also registered against the violators.
The team checked vaccination certificates of drivers and passengers at local vans, buses, passengers of Metro buses, and Bykea's drivers. Later, the NCOC team along with Assistant Commissioner Rawalpindi City sealed and imposed heavy fines on several franchises of various cellular companies in Main Sadar Bazaar for attending non-vaccinated customers.
The team also administered single shot of Cansino vaccine to the staff and customers on the spot. In another raid, the team checked the vaccination status of staff and visitors at various hotels and restaurants in Saddar Bazaar and Jinnah Park. The team also imposed fine and sealed several hotels on coronavirus SOPs' violation.
Meanwhile, Pakistan reported less than 40,000 active Covid-19 cases for the first time, since the fourth wave of the pandemic started in July in the country. The total number of active Covid-19 cases in Pakistan decreased to 39,593, data released by the NCOC showed Friday.
The country last reported less than 40,000 cases on July 13 at 39,644 cases. The NCOC also reported 1,086 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the country's total infections to 1,262,771. The positivity rate now stands at 2.02 percent. The death toll from the virus rose by 27 to 28,228.
The total recoveries rose to 1,194,590 after 1,415 newly-recovered cases were added. The Covid-19 infections are decreasing in Pakistan, with 909 new infections reported on average each day. That is 15 percent of the peak - the highest daily average reported on June 17.
Pakistan has administered at least 93,551,193 doses of Covid vaccines so far. Assuming every person needs two doses, that is enough to have vaccinated about 21.6 percent of the country's population. During the last week reported, Pakistan averaged about 918,586 doses administered each day. At that rate, it will take a further 48 days to administer enough doses for another 10 percent of the population.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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