‘No lockdown for now,’ says NCOC chief regardless of rising coronavirus circumstances

“For now, we’re intently monitoring the numbers from Pakistan and throughout the globe; we’re emphasising on vaccinations,” the federal minister for planning, growth.

He highlighted that as an alternative of lockdowns, the federal government is specializing in ramping up vaccinations and strict implementation of the bans positioned earlier on sure actions if one will not be vaccinated.

Coronavirus circumstances of the Omicron variant are going up in Karachi due to a scarcity of vaccinations, Jinnah Sindh Medical College (JSMU) Appearing Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Shahid Rasul.

The medic stated a majority of the COVID-19 circumstances in Karachi are of the Omicron variant, with the Sindh Well being Division’s statistics exhibiting that the town’s positivity ratio reached 9.23% within the final 24 hours.

“Not solely [is the] Omicron, however [the] Delta variant can also be spreading […] and sadly, the vaccination ratio in Karachi stand stands at 40%,” Dr Rasul lamented.

He spoke concerning the sudden rise in circumstances over the past week and highlighted that lockdowns are depending on the positivity ratio. If the positivity ratio continues to maneuver up, the federal government should impose restrictions, he stated.

Earlier this week, on January 3, the Sindh authorities had stated the prevalence of the Omicron variant had reached as much as 50% within the province, particularly in Karachi.

In the meantime, Pakistan’s coronavirus positivity ratio exceeded 2% in a single day for the primary time since October 14 final 12 months, as 1,085 new infections have been detected over the last 24 hours, official information for Thursday morning confirmed.

On October 14, 2021, the positivity ratio stood at 2.03%. Day by day infections have crossed the 1,000-mark for the primary time since October 14.

As per the statistics issued by Nationwide Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), the brand new circumstances pushed the positivity price to 2.32%, which is a 0.5% improve in Wednesday’s ratio, which was 1.8%.

A day earlier, federal ministers urged Pakistanis to get vaccinated and revisit mask-wearing, because the circumstances of the brand new coronavirus variant, Omicron, have began spreading quickly within the nation.

“Omicron spreads at a quick tempo, nevertheless it is not deadly […] nonetheless, don’t suppose that nothing will occur to you when you get contaminated with the Omicron variant,” Nationwide Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar stated.

In a message to folks residing in megacities, he stated that from day one, the federal government had been informing that in closely populated areas, coronavirus tends to unfold in a short time.

Within the final seven days, on common, Lahore and Karachi accounted for 60% of the whole nation’s circumstances, he stated, urging folks of the megacities to get jabbed as quickly as potential.