Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Indoor marriages have been banned in Pakistan in the latest Coronavirus restrictions imposed by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC). The country’s Coronavirus situation continues to deteriorate after the number of deaths in a single day increased to 30 on Friday.
According to a notification issued on Friday, major cities with “high positivity and higher disease spread potential”, have been asked to enforce a ban on indoor marriages.
“Only outdoor marriages allowed with upper limit of 1,000 persons,” read the NCOC notification.
The rule pertains to Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Hyderabad, Gilgit, Muzzafarabad, Mirpur, Peshawar, Quetta, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur, and Abbottabad.
The decision will go into effect from November 20, 2020. Meanwhile, the country’s coronavirus situation continues to deteriorate as the number of deaths in a single day increased to 30 after a gap of over three months.
According to the data shared by National Command and Operation Centre on Friday, a total of 1,376 people tested positive, bringing the number of active coronavirus cases to 16,242.
Another 30 people succumbed to the disease on the day, bringing the total death toll to 6,923. The last time the daily death toll had crossed the 30 mark was July 29 when 32 deaths were reported. The total tally of Covid-19 cases now stands at 340,251, with 317,086 people have recovered from the disease.
A total of 35,745 tests were carried out for the detection of Covid-19 during the last 24 hours as the country has so far conducted 4,609,513 tests. The positivity rate has dropped to 3.84 percent after nearing 5 percent a couple of days back.
Karachi Commissioner Iftikhar Shalwani on Friday issued a city-wide directive, making the wearing of face masks compulsory for all citizens. The decision was taken in view of the rising incidence of coronavirus cases in the port city, according to a press release issued by the commissioner’s spokesperson.
Shalwani, who also holds the charge of Karachi administrator, directed deputy commissioners to ensure that all citizens wore masks and to impose penalties of up to Rs500 in case of violation of the order.
Meanwhile, at least 216 students and teachers tested positive for Covid-19 during the past 24 hours in Karachi’s district East. A Sindh health department team conducted random Covid-19 testing of students and teachers in the district. The team had taken samples of 9,158 students and teachers of various government schools. A total of 216 out of 9,158 tests came back positive, confirmed the district health office.
Meanwhile, the global tally of coronavirus cases has reached 49,169,894. A total of 35,071,854 patients have recovered and 1,241,870 have died so far.
The US, the worst-hit country, has 9,926,637 cases. It is followed by India, which has 8,411,724 cases, Brazil has 5,614,258 and Russia has 1,733,440 confirmed cases. Pakistan at present stands at number 28 among the list of countries affected by the coronavirus disease.
