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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Fake news alert: NCOC warns Twitter users of false notice on primary school closure

"Action against this account has been initiated through FIA cyber crime wing," says NCOC via authentic Twitter account

By Web Desk
January 18, 2022
NCOCs authentic Twitter handle @OfficialNcoc posted a fake news alert, attaching a screenshot of the fake account @OfficialNcocMtg falsely attributing primary school closure to NCOC, on January 18, 2022. — Twitter/NCOC
NCOC's authentic Twitter handle @OfficialNcoc posted a fake news alert, attaching a screenshot of the fake account @OfficialNcocMtg falsely attributing primary school closure to NCOC, on January 18, 2022. — Twitter/NCOC

The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Tuesday warned Twitter users of a fake notice being attributed to it, which falsely states that primary schools "will remain closed until next order".

"A fake news regarding closure of primary schools is circulating via a fake Twitter account," warned NCOC.

"Action against this account has been initiated through FIA cyber crime wing," it added.

NCOC's authentic Twitter handle @OfficialNcoc posted the alert, attaching a screenshot of the fake account @OfficialNcocMtg.

A day earlier, the NCOC deferred the decision on the closure of schools in the country even as the fifth wave of coronavirus rages on in the country with a rising number of cases of the Omicron variant.

A statement issued after an NCOC meeting said: “Decision about education institutions will be taken on data of positive cases of various institutions for which massive testing in educational institutions is being carried out.”

Meanwhile, expressing serious concerns over the worsening COVID-19 situation in Karachi and other parts of the country, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA)  warned today that the next two to three weeks could be critical for the country.

The PMA urged the government to act quickly as Karachi’s COVID-19 positivity rate reached 40%. This number only showed registered coronavirus cases, however, the number of unregistered cases is much higher, it added.

Pakistan's coronavirus positivity ratio has almost reached 10% in the last 24 hours.

In this period, 5,034 new cases were reported after 53,253 tests were conducted across the country, taking the positivity ratio to 9.45%, according to NCOC's Tuesday morning data.

The positivity ratio reported today is the highest since May 8, 2021, while the last time daily infections were registered below 5,034 was on August 5, 2021, when the country recorded 4,745 infections.

The country also registered 10 more deaths, bumping the death toll to 29,029, official figures showed, with overall cases reaching 1.33 million.