Coronavirus lockdown in Punjab to be lifted tonight, notification issued

LAHORE: Punjab government has notified to lift a complete lockdown in the province from Sunday midnight, however, smart lockdown will remain in place in the province amid coronavirus pandemic, ARY NEWS reported.

The notification issued by Secretary Primary and Secondary Healthcare Captain (retd) Muhammad Usman asked all relevant authorities to ensure complete implementation on the fresh directives.

All business centres will remain open in the province five times a day from Monday to Friday during 9:00 am to 7:00 pm, the provincial health department said further allowing operations of grocery shops from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm during the entire week.

The provincial government also announced to allow rallies on August 05 to express solidarity with Kashmiris.

Medical stores, puncture shops, agriculture workshops and roti shops would be allowed to operate 24-hours while call centres would also be allowed to operate with 50 percent staffers.

The secretary notified that inter-city bus service will be allowed to operate.

On the contrary, the educational institutes, marriage halls, restaurants, parks and cinemas would remain shut in the province.

There would be a complete ban on the congregation for political, religious and sports-related activities, the notification read besides allowing church activities on Sunday from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm.

The fresh orders for smart lockdown in the province will remain effective until August 17.

It is pertinent to mention here that in one of the reports earlier in the day, the provincial health sources while divulging reasons behind lifting lockdown in earlier one of the worst-hit province said that it was decided after promising results emerged from the randomly collected samples from cattle markets in the province.

No traces of coronavirus were found from the samples collected from cattle markets, they said.