As Pakistan battles, a deadly third wave of COVID-19, the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC), has issued a list of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for Ramzan.
A special meeting was chaired by Federal Minister for Planning, Development, Reforms and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on April 13, during which the following NPIs were decided:
- Broader lockdowns
- Saturdays and Sundays will be observed as ‘closed days’ at the national level
- The market timing will be from Sehr till 6:00 pm apart from essential services
- Indoor dining will be banned, however, outdoor dining will be allowed from iftar till midnight
- Complete closure of cinemas and shrines will continue to be enforced
- 50% work from the home policy will continue
- Taraweeh prayer to be organised in open spaces as far as possible
- There will be a complete ban on contact sports, festivals, cultural gatherings, and other events
- All kind of indoor, as well as outdoor gatherings, will remain banned
- Ban inter-provincial transport on two closed days (Saturdays and Sundays) which will continue to be enforced till midnight April 25-26 and the decision will be reviewed on April 20.
- Stringent protocols for tourism have been imposed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu Kashmir and tourist sites elsewhere. In addition to that, Sentinel testing sites at every point/selected locations will be established.
All NPIs will be effective from Ramzan 1st (April 14).
As per NCOC, 4681 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the last 24 hours, with the positivity rate of 9.73%, whereas 135 people lost their lives.
