Sindh government has imposed COVID-19 lockdown across the province till August 8th to tackle significant increase in coronavirus surge.
The decision was made in the provincial coronavirus taskforce chaired by CM Sindh Murad Ali Shah on Friday (today).
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Under the new lockdown directives;
- There will be a ban on inter-city travel
- All markets will remain closed
- All government offices would be closed
- The Export, food and health related industries will continue to operate
- Public’s vaccination cards will be checked
- Takeaways from restaurants will also be prohibited, with permission for only home deliveries.
- Exams have been postponed
- Only grocery shops, pharmacies, bakeries, butchers, vegetable shops, fuel pumps and media houses will be allowed to operate
- Private offices will either remain closed, or will operate with reduced limited staff under strict COVID-19 SOPs
Those who do not get vaccinated will not get their salary after August 31st
During the meeting, Sindh Health Secretary Dr Kazim Jatoi appraised the forum that the COVID-19 positivity rate had risen to 13.7 % across the province.
He elaborated that 45 patients died in the last 24 hours and at present, there were 39,958 COVID-19 active cases in the province out of which 1,410 are hospitalized and around 1,192 patients were in critical condition.
The COVID-19 positivity rate was 23% in Karachi, 14.52% in Hyderabad and 2.9% in Sukkur.
Karachi’s District East has a positivity rate of 33%.
Korangi is at 21%, Central’s positivity ratio is 20%, West at 19% and Karachi South and Malir at about 17%.
The meeting was attended by Provincial Ministers, Nasir Shah, Jam Ikram, Murtaza Wahab, Qasim Soomro besides Opposition MPAs, Bilal Ghaffar, Abdul Rashid MMA, Qasim Fakhri of TLP, Hasnain Mirza of GDA, Zubair Motiwala from the business community, chief secretary, IG Police, Sindh Rangers DG and others.
The development comes as earlier in the day, NCOC announced that that the forum had “critically reviewed” the disease spread in Karachi and had decided to take all possible measures to assist the provincial government.
It is to be noted that Federal Minister for Planning, Development – Asad Umar had rejected the idea of closing down entire cities to curb the spread of coronavirus.
CM Sindh Murad Ali Shah Holds Press Briefing
Addressing a press conference announcing government’s decision to impose lockdown, CM Murad Ali Shah noted said that it is being said that “it is not as if the pandemic will end in nine days”, but what must be understood is that in this period “hospitals will not choke”.
Answering a question regarding why a nine-day lockdown was announced, versus a 15-day one, Shah said that the task force, in its meeting today, acknowledged that this period — which amounts to five actual days of lockdown as four days will be regular off days for businesses anyway — will be one “that will cause minimum economic damage”.
He added that doctors concurred that “something is better than nothing”.
“At least a break will be provided — think of it as a speed breaker slowing things down,” Shah said.
“Then, when we reopen, I hope people will continue to follow SOPs, so we are not forced to repeat such a move,” the chief minister said.
