Pak minister rules out COVID-19 lockdown

Pakistan on Thursday ruled out lockdown despite the Omicron-led daily number of new infections crossing 1,000 for the first time in about three months.Planning Minister Asad Umar, the chief of National Command and Operation Center NCOC, told the media the anti-coronavirus body was keeping a close eye on the pandemic situation.

Pakistan on Thursday ruled out lockdown despite the Omicron-led daily number of new infections crossing 1,000 for the first time in about three months.

Planning Minister Asad Umar, the chief of National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), told the media the anti-coronavirus body was keeping a close eye on the pandemic situation. ''At this time there is no plan of (imposing) lockdowns. We are looking at (Covid) numbers very closely as we shared today what has happened in the rest of the world and what is starting to happen in Pakistan,'' Umar told Geo News.

He said that the immediate focus of the government was on scaling up the pace of vaccinations and enforcing the previously placed restrictions on unvaccinated people.

Umar on Sunday said that there were clear indications that the fifth wave of the coronavirus pandemic had hit the country.

The minister's comments come on the day as Pakistan reported 1,085 new coronavirus cases for the last 24 hours.

Last time the country had reported more than 1,000 cases with 1,086 cases on October 14 last year, according to the data of the Ministry of National Health Services, which also showed that the positivity rate has risen to 2.32 per cent.

The new spike is driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which was first detected in Pakistan on December 13, when health authorities found its first case in Karachi.

Pakistan already has braved four waves of the pandemic since the first case of the coronavirus was reported on February 26, 2020.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)