Provinces adopting strict measures to curb COVID-19 spread, NCOC told

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has been told that the provincial authorities are implementing strict measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic by the imposition of fines and seizing properties of violators of the standard operating procedures (SOPs), ARY News reported on Monday.

A session of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) was held under the chair of Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar today which was attended by chief secretaries and other high-ups. The session discussed the steps to stop the COVID-19 spread, implementation of SOPs and the situation of consistently increasing positivity rate of the virus.

Read: 3,795 COVID-19 cases, 37 deaths reported in 24 hours: NCOC

The federal and provincial officials gave briefings to the participants of the NCOC session. They said that the overall positivity rate of the virus stood at 9.71 per cent and the highest rate was recorded in the Sindh’s capital Karachi up to 21.31 per cent followed by 17.86 per cent in Abbottabad and 16.66 per cent in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

The number of critical patients has reached up to 2,539.

According to statistics, the positivity rate of coronavirus pandemic in Sindh is 15.83, 11.93 pc in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) region, 11.61 pc in Balochistan, 2.89 pc in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), 8.20 pc Islamabad and 8.22 in Punjab.

Read: NCOC approves COVID-19 vaccine administration plan: sources

The officials stated that more than 40,000 coronavirus detection tests are being conducted on a daily basis since last two weeks and 81 per cent COVID-19 positive patients were belonging to the major cities.

With regards to the ongoing detection tests across the country, they said that 40 per cent of tests were conducted on the basis of contact tracing in the last week.

Smart lockdown has been imposed at 4,503 spots with a population of around 150 million across the country, said the officials, adding that strict steps are being taken to curb the virus spread in provinces besides enforcement of SOPs.

Read: 309 coronavirus patients are on ventilators across country: NCOC

The provincial administrations imposed fined and seized properties of those violating the prevention measures.

Moreover, the country is observing the week-long enforcement of strict SOPs for curbing the virus spread during its second wave and to spread awareness regarding the government’s guidelines from December 5 to December 12.