The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Friday decided to shut down all schools with a high COVID-19 positivity ratio for one week across the country to curb the new variant, Omicron.
A notification issued by the NCOC said that all the educational institutions, premises, sections, specific classes with high positivity will be closed for one week.
"Provincial administration, in consultation with district health, education authorities, and school administrations, is to set a threshold of cases for deciding such closures," the notification added.
The NCOC added that COVID testing in educational institutes was carried out in major Omicron-hit cities to ascertain disease spread among students and ensure accurate disease mapping.
Therefore, keeping in view the results, the NCOC has taken the following decisions:
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan registered its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases — 7,678 — in the last 24 hours, up from 6,808, the second-highest daily toll, since the pandemic started in 2020, official figures showed Friday morning.
With the new infections, the overall cases have moved past 1.35 million. Meanwhile, as many as 59,343 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, and the positivity ratio shot up to 12.93%.