Zubair Qureshi
The residents of the federal capital, particularly those living in two subsectors of G-9, G-9/2 & 3 and Karachi Company (G-9/4) are heaving a sigh of relief today (Sunday) as lockdown is ending there.
The district administration had sealed these areas along with Karachi Company on June 12 midnight after more than 300 cases of coronavirus (active and their contacts) were reported from these areas and frequent violations of Standard Operating Procedures were reported from Karachi.
Initially, these areas were sealed for a period of three days but after re-evaluating the situation they decided to extend lockdown for a period of 14 days that ended Saturday midnight.
During this period, people were not allowed to come out of their homes except to buy essentials and only medical stores and food outlets in the area stayed open.
Apart from that all activities including weddings, events and gatherings, majalis and mosques remained suspended.
Deputy Commissioner of Islamabad Mohammad Hamza Shafqaat told Pakistan Observer that the number of coronavirus cases in the capital had significantly decreased in the wake of the smart lockdown.
“The number of virus infections reduced by 90 percent in the areas that were sealed last month,” he said.
“Even now, the daily emergence of new cases is more than 300, but we have reduced it from 700 within a matter of days.”
Shafqaat added that smart lockdown would continue until the authorities managed to flatten the curve of the infectious respiratory disease in the federal capital.
At present subsectors of G-10, G-6, G-7 and two phases of Ghouri Town are sealed and we shall ensure there too, incidence of new infections comes down to minimum, said Hamza Shafqaat.
Islamabad on Saturday reported 12,206 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 120 deaths against Friday’s numbers of 11,918 and 119.
Shafqaat noted that the spread of the disease in the federal capital was maximum six percent per day which was less than the country’s average.
“Our testing ratio is the best in the country since we are testing 3,000 people every day.
More than 100,000 people have so far been tested in Islamabad which is almost equal to the number of tests performed by the entire province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
KP has also reported more than 20,000 positive cases while we have about 12,000 confirmed cases.”
