ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reinstated ‘smart lockdowns’ in several regions of the country after the national Covid-19 positivity rate rose over 2 percent for the first time in six weeks, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar said on Sunday.
“Mini smart lockdowns have been imposed in Karachi, Islamabad and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Instructions have been issued to administrations across the country to ensure that precautionary measures are followed. But like in the past, success is impossible without the cooperation of the people,” Umar tweeted.
This image shows a notification issued by the District Health Department Islamabad on the imposition of smart lockdown in a few areas of Islamabad on October 10, 2020.
“The minister’s appeal comes as Punjab on Sunday confirmed 203 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours. This is the first time since August 15 that Pakistan’s most populous province has recorded more than 200 daily cases, taking its total infections to 100,687.
Earlier, in a notification issued late Saturday night, the Ministry of Health said that Islamabad’s District Health Office (DHO) had reported a spike in cases based on a survey of various areas in the city, including several streets of the G-10/4 residential sectors of the capital.
“Similarly, street number 25 and 29 in sector I-8/2 and street number 85 and 89 of the sector G-9/4 have the same trend of increasing COVID-19 cases,” the statement said.
It added that DHO-appointed teams were working round the clock to test samples from the listed areas and quarantining COVID-19-positive residents to limit the outbreak.
The notification said “timely” measures could help authorities “reduce the transmission of the infection in these streets and other sectors of Islamabad.”
As of Sunday, the national case load stood at 318,932, with 666 people testing positive for coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
More than 6,570 people have succumbed to the disease since the outbreak was first reported in February this year.
