ISLAMABAD: Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar has said that the Army troops have been deployed in 16 cities to ensure compliance with the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs).
“Army troops deployed in cities where positivity ratio reached ‘dangerous’ levels – 16 percent,” the DG ISPR said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad today (Monday).
The cities included Islamabad, Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera, Charsadda, Swabi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur, Gujranwala, Karachi, Hyderabad, Quetta and Muzaffarabad, he added.
DG ISPR further said that the death toll due to COVID-19 was on the rise in the country and it has reached 2.16 percent for the first time. “Approximately 90 ventilators have been occupied in the country,” he added.
“The troops will assist the civil administration and will not avail any security allowance. We can remain safe only by adhering to the Covid-19 SOPs,” Babar Iftikhar added.
He further said that 75 percent oxygen was being distributed in the health sector. However, he added, that if the situation persists then the oxygen is given to the industrial sector would also be allocated to the health sector.
He said that a team has been deployed at every administrative level. “At the division level the team [of armed forces] will be headed by a brigadier level officer and at the district level by a Lt-Col,” he said.
