ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned against a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, urging the public to strictly adhere to standard operating procedures (SOPs) to curb the spread of the deadly disease.

Pakistan recorded its highest COVID-19 positivity ratio at 7.46 percent on Monday, with the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) – which leads the anti-COVID-19 efforts in the country – saying that 19 percent of the cases were from the education sector.

“On average 35 people lost lives during last week, 19% of cases are from education sector. Positivity ratio in educational institutions increase from 1.8% to 3.3% during last one week, which is actually 82% increase,” the NCOC said on Monday.

In two separate social media posts on Sunday, PM Khan said that “this is the time again to remain careful as we did during the first wave in the first half of this year,” warning that if the coronavirus cases continued to rise, his government would be “compelled to go into another lockdown.”

His posts were about a massive rally held by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – an alliance of 11 major opposition parties – in Peshawar on Sunday, with PM Khan saying that the PDM was “callously” endangering people’s lives in the country.

“….complete lockdowns in most countries. In Pak, the PDM by continuing with jalsas [rallies] is deliberately endangering lives & livelihoods bec [because] if cases continue to rise at the rate we are seeing, we will be compelled to go into complete lockdown & PDM will be responsible for consequences,” he tweeted.



In another Facebook post, he reminded people to use face masks in public places “to slow down the rate of the virus and ultimately control the pandemic” and follow social distancing measures.

For the past several weeks, authorities have been sounding the alarm over a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak.

More than 34 deaths and 2,756 cases were recorded on Monday, taking the national caseload to 376,929 infections and 7,696 deaths since the outbreak was first reported in March, according to government data.