‘No lockdown for now,’ says NCOC chief despite rising coronavirus cases

• NCOC chief gives his two cents on how govt plans to deal with surge in COVID-19 cases across Pakistan.
• Says there are no plans of a lockdown, highlights need to get vaccinated instead.
• Statement comes as Pakistan records positivity ratio over 2% for first time in over two months.

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ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI: The Pakistan government has no intentions of imposing a coronavirus lockdown for now, National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar said Thursday, despite the country recording a rapid surge in infections over the last two weeks.

“For now, we are closely monitoring the numbers from Pakistan and across the globe; we are emphasising on vaccinations,” the federal minister for planning, development, and special initiatives told media.

He highlighted that instead of lockdowns, the government is focusing on ramping up vaccinations and strict implementation of the bans placed earlier on certain activities if one is not vaccinated. 

‘Lack of vaccination in Karachi increasing Omicron cases’

The medic said a majority of the COVID-19 cases in Karachi are of the Omicron variant, with the Sindh Health Department’s statistics showing that the city’s positivity ratio reached 9.23% in the last 24 hours.

“Not only [is the] Omicron, but [the] Delta variant is also spreading […] and unfortunately, the vaccination ratio in Karachi stand stands at 40%,” Dr Rasul lamented.

He spoke about the sudden rise in cases over the last week and highlighted that lockdowns are dependent on the positivity ratio. If the positivity ratio continues to move up, the government will have to impose restrictions, he said.

Earlier this week, on January 3, the Sindh government had said the prevalence of the Omicron variant had reached up to 50% in the province, especially in Karachi.

Pakistan’s COVID-19 positivity ratio exceeds 2%

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s coronavirus positivity ratio exceeded 2% in a single day for the first time since October 14 last year, as 1,085 new infections were detected during the last 24 hours, official data for Thursday morning showed.