ISLAMABAD: Authorities on Friday made face masks mandatory for the residents of Karachi, Pakistan's most densely populated seaside metropolis, to prevent further spread of the novel coronavirus, announced an official statement.
Commissioner Iftikhar Shalwani instructed his subordinates to encourage the residents of the city to cover their faces in public. He also directed them to act against those individuals who violate the instruction by imposing a penalty of up to Rs.500 (US$3.13).
"Make sure that shopkeepers and markets are following the SOPs [standard operating procedures]," Shalwani said, referring to the officially prescribed safety measures to deal with the pandemic.
"Shopkeepers must cover their faces and not let customers enter their outlets without fallther restrictions as new coronavirus infections have surged across the country, with 1,376 new cases and 30 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, according to a government portal.
Apart from Karachi, Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, also made face masks mandatory in all indoor and outdoor places and on transportation services. All bazaars, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, bakeries, wedding halls, beauty parlors and barbershops have been ordered to close shop at 10pm and amusement parks at 6pm.
The southern Sindh province reported 556 cases and 17 deaths on Thursday, its highest daily totals since July 29, when the province registered 654 cases.
Sindh’s case tally now stands at 148,343, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said in a statement.
The province also recorded 17 deaths in the past 24 hours, a three-month record. The provincial death toll has risen to 2,664.
Despite the rising cases, Pakistan’s federal and provincial administrations on Thursday decided not to close education institutes.
“All provincial education authorities, head of education boards and other participants reached a consensus decision that there was no need to close education institutes under the present circumstances. Therefore, education institutes will continue to remain open,” the federal education ministry said in a Twitter post on Thursday.
Last week, Pakistan’s de facto health minister, Dr. Faisal Sultan, announced that the second wave of coronavirus had arrived and new restrictions and lockdowns were “inevitable.”
Prime Minister Khan has repeatedly said the country would need to learn to “live with” the virus to avert pushing tens of millions living on daily wages into destitution.
Pakistan began to lift its lockdown, imposed in March, on May 9, about two weeks before the Eid Al-Fitr festival that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and is celebrated with congregation prayers, family gatherings and feasting. Transport and most businesses reopened but cinemas, theaters and schools remain closed.
In August, the government announced that virtually all sectors shut down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus would be reopened that month, other than schools and marriage halls, which opened in September. There has been an uptick in infection numbers since.
Karachi makes face masks mandatory as coronavirus cases surge in Pakistan
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Karachi makes face masks mandatory as coronavirus cases surge in Pakistan
- People violating officially prescribed safety measures to prevent further infections could be fined up to Rs.500
- Similar restrictions are gradually imposed in other major cities as the second wave of the virus sweeps the country
Rating firm S&P says it won’t rush Iran war downgrades, sees risks for countries like Pakistan
- Agency says it is monitoring indebted energy importers as higher oil prices strain finances
- Gulf economies seen better placed to weather shock, though Bahrain flagged as vulnerable
LONDON: S&P Global said it would not make any knee-jerk sovereign rating cuts following the outbreak of war in the Middle East, but warned on Thursday that soaring oil and gas prices were putting a number of already cash-strapped countries at risk.
The firm’s top analysts said in a webinar that the conflict, which has involved US and Israeli strikes against Iran and Iranian strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, was now moving from a low- to moderate-risk scenario.
Most Gulf countries had enough fiscal buffers, however, to weather the crisis for a while, with more lowly rated Bahrain the only clear exception.
Qatar’s banking sector could also struggle if there were significant deposit outflows in reaction to the conflict, although there was no evidence of such strains at the moment, they said.
“We don’t want to jump the gun and just say things are bad,” S&P’s head global sovereign analyst, Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, said.
The longer the crisis was prolonged, though, “the more difficult it is going to be,” he added.
Sifon-Arevalo said Asia was the second-most exposed region, due to many of its countries being significant Gulf oil and gas importers.
India, Thailand and Indonesia have relatively lower reserves of oil, while the region also had already heavily indebted countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka whose finances would be further hurt by rising energy prices.
“We are closely monitoring these (countries) to see how the credit stories evolve,” Sifon-Arevalo said.
