No intention of imposing lockdown for now: Asad Umar

"We are closely monitoring the numbers from Pakistan and across the globe; we are emphasising on vaccinations," says NCOC chief

By Web Desk

January 06, 2022

ISLAMABAD: National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar on Thursday ruled out the possibility of an immediate lockdown in the country, despite the recent spike in new COVID-19 cases amid the fifth wave of the pandemic in the country.

Speaking to Geo News, Asad Umar said: "For now, we are closely monitoring the numbers from Pakistan and across the globe; we are emphasising on vaccinations."

He highlighted that instead of lockdowns, the government is focusing on ramping up vaccinations and strict implementation of the bans placed earlier on certain activities if one is not vaccinated.

'Lack of vaccination in Karachi increasing Omicron cases'

Coronavirus cases of the Omicron variant are going up in Karachi because of a lack of vaccinations, Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU) Acting Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Shahid Rasul told Geo News today.

He said a majority of the COVID-19 cases in Karachi are of the Omicron variant, with the Sindh Health Department's statistics showing that the city's positivity ratio reached 9.23% in the last 24 hours.

"Not only [is] Omicron [spreading], but [so is] the Delta variant [...] and unfortunately, the vaccination ratio in Karachi stands at 40%," Dr Rasul lamented.

He spoke about the sudden rise in cases over the last week and highlighted that lockdowns are dependent on the positivity ratio. If the positivity ratio continues to move up, the government will have to impose restrictions, he said.

On January 3, the Sindh government said 50% of the province's cases had turned out to be of the Omicron variant, especially in Karachi.

Pakistan's daily COVID-19 infections cross 1,000 mark

Meanwhile, Pakistan's coronavirus positivity ratio exceeded 2% in a single day for the first time since October 14 last year, as 1,085 new infections were detected during the last 24 hours, official data for Thursday morning showed.

On October 14, 2021, the positivity ratio stood at 2.03%. Daily infections have crossed the 1,000-mark for the first time since October 14.

As per the statistics issued by NCOC, the new cases pushed the positivity rate to 2.32%, which is a 0.5% increase in Wednesday's ratio, which was 1.8%.