ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed has categorically rejected the impression that the government had any plan of clamping complete lockdown in Islamabad Capital Territory immediately amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
“Any decision of lockdown in Islamabad shall be taken only on the suggestion of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC),” the minister said while rebuffing media reports attributed to him in that regard.
Sheikh Rasheed said he never stated that there would be complete lockdown from Monday, and it was being attributed to him wrongly. “I did not talk of complete lockdown due to COVID-19 cases at all,” he said adding this was the domain of the NCOC, not the Interior Ministry.
Rasheed said the country could not afford to go back to lockdown and urged people to follow the government’s SOPs for curbing the spread of the deadly pandemic.
The COVID-19 cases are continually surging as the country grapples with the third wave of the pandemic, with Pakistan’s coronavirus positivity ratio moving up to 9.46% and the country recording 3,876 cases and 42 deaths in the last 24 hours.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan has reported as many as 3,876 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s COVID-19 tally to 623,135.
According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), the country’s death toll climbed to 13,799 after 42 people succumbed to the deadly disease during the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, 1,446 patients recovered from the deadly disease in a day taking the total recoveries to 579,760. The monitoring body further informed that the total active COVID-19 cases across the country were reported to be 29,576.
