ISLAMABAD: Pakistani planning minister Asad Umar, who also heads the federal pandemic response body, the NCOC, said on Thursday the government had no plans to impose a lockdown amid a new surge in coronavirus infections driven by the spread of the omicron variant.
Since the heavily mutated variant was first detected in November, WHO data shows it has spread quickly and emerged in at least 128 countries, presenting dilemmas for many nations and people seeking to reboot their economies and lives after nearly two years of COVID-related disruptions.
However, while case numbers have surged to all-time records, the hospitalization and death rates are often lower than at other phases in the pandemic.
As case numbers due to omicron have soared, some countries, including the United States, have cut down isolation or quarantine periods in a bid to allow asymptomatic people to return to work or school.
“At this time there is no plan of lockdowns,” Umar told Geo News. “For now, we are closely monitoring the numbers from Pakistan and across the globe; we are emphasizing on vaccinations.”
Over 72 million Pakistanis, nearly 50 percent of the eligible population, have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus while almost a 100 million more have received a first dose.
Pakistan reported 1,085 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, with its infection positivity rate rising to 2.32 percent. The positivity rate had fallen below one percent last month and last crossed two percent on October 14 last year.
The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) warned earlier this week that the omicron variant-driven fifth wave was already spreading in the country at a “great pace.”
“There are clear indications that a new wave has started, positivity ratio that was around 0.6, 0.7 and 0.8 in past several weeks, now in a very short span of time, there is a sharp increase in that,” Umar said at a press conference on Wednesday, adding that the highly contagious new strain was spreading mostly in big cities.
“If we will see those average figures of the past one week, 60 percent COVID-19 cases reported were from Karachi and Lahore,” he said, “so I urge people living in big cities to get vaccinated.”
