NCOC chief says people still need to be cautious as the pandemic is not over yet<\/p>\n
Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who is also the chief of National Command and Control Centre (NCOC), said on Monday that the government was gradually opening business activities as the positivity rate in the country had come down from 10-11 per cent to 4%.
\nBriefing the media in Islamabad over the Covid-19 situation in Pakistan, he said that due to the timely decisions of the government, the spread of coronavirus, which had reached dangerous levels, is on the decline now. However, he added, that the masses are still needed to be cautious as the pandemic is still not over.
\n\u201cThe positivity rate, which had reached 10-11%, had come down to 4.5% last week and yesterday it was just over 4%,\u201d the NCOC chief said but added that the positivity rate in Sindh is still a bit high and the situation needed to be handled carefully.
\n\u201cFortunately, Pakistan did not witness the situation faced by some other countries in the region but we still need to be cautious because pandemic is not over yet.\u201d
\nTalking about resumption of normal life, Asad said that the only way to get rid of Covid-19 pandemic is by administrating vaccine to as many people as possible and as quickly as possible.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a positive trend in countries where a large number of people are being vaccinated… the positivity ratio in these countries is on the decline and they\u2019re now moving towards a normal life… we have to do the same in Pakistan,\u201d he added.
\nThe NCOC chief said that Pakistan has vaccinated over 7 million people so far and the government\u2019s target is to vaccinate at least 70 million people by the end of the year.
\nHe also announced initiating a vast campaign to encourage people to get vaccinated. \u201cWe are holding a meeting at NCOC tomorrow where we have invited media owners… the way media ran awareness campaigns for the pandemic, we want similar kind of cooperation from them for the vaccination campaign,\u201d he added.
\nAsad further said that the government would also approach the religious scholars as they have great influence over the masses. \u201cWe have requested the president to meet with Ulema and convey this [vaccination] message to them as safeguarding our own selves is also a religious obligation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NCOC chief says people still need to be cautious as the pandemic is not over yet Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, who is also the chief of National Command and Control Centre (NCOC), said on Monday that the government was gradually opening business activities as the positivity rate in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-news"],"yoast_head":"\n