KARACHI – Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Friday that schools across the province would remain closed for one more week amid fears of surge in Covid-19 cases.
A spokesperson of the chief minister said that the educational institutions would reopen from August 30 (Monday) instead of 23rd.
The decision to extend the closure of schools was taken after the provincial health department issued an alert about surge in the coronavirus cases and recommended that the schools should not be reopened on August 23, the date which had been announced by provincial education minister on Tuesday.
The health department said that the vaccination of teachers and parents of students was incomplete.
Addressing a press conference, the chief minister said that the week will be utilised to vaccinate the school staff and parents, adding that the measures were being taken for the safety of students.
The provincial government had closed the schools on July 24 following spike in Covid-19 cases but it announced to hold examinations as per schedule.
The exams were later also postponed in early August when the Sindh administration imposed partial lockdown to stem the spread of virus.
COVID Situation in Pakistan
The total number of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 has surpassed one million on Friday, according to statistics from the National Command and Operation, while the death toll approaches 25,000.
According to NCOC statistics, the number of infections has risen to 1,116,886 with 3,239 new cases recorded in the past 24 hours after 51,982 COVID-19 tests were performed.
The number of active cases has reached 89,673, the highest level since May 2, when there were 89,661 active cases in the country.
After 3,027 additional recoveries were reported, the NCOC reported 1,002,430 recovered cases. Meanwhile, 70 more individuals have died as a result of the illness, bringing the total number of persons who have died to 24,783.
As of August 20, the daily positivity rate, or the percentage of infected patients among those tested, was 6.23 percent out of 51,982 tests. The World Health Organization recommends a rate of less than 5% since large numbers may lead to increased transmission.
According to reports, the average number of new infections recorded each day in Pakistan increased by more than 940 in the past three weeks, representing a 16 percent increase over the previous high.
In Pakistan, COVID-19 infections are on the decline, with 4,050 new cases recorded on average each day. That’s 69 percent of the top, which was reached on June 17 with the highest day average ever recorded.
So far, Pakistan has given out at least 44,736,977 doses of COVID-19 vaccination. Assuming that each individual requires two doses, it would be enough to vaccinate approximately 10.3% of the country’s population.
Pakistan gave an average of 716,137 dosages per day over the latest week reported. At that pace, administering enough dosages for another 10% of the population will take another 61 days.
Read more: https://pakobserver.net/covid-19-pakistan-records-over-1mn-recovered-cases/
