From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: The Sindh government on Monday announced to close down schools, colleges, and educational institutions across the province and move to remote learning as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. A meeting of the provincial Coronavirus Task Force, chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and by members of the cabinet also decided to suspend dine-in services at restaurants and cafes and permit only takeaway and delivery services.
Shopping centres across the province will close down at 6:00 pm, it decided. “If cases continue to increase, then markets will be completely closed down,” Shah said during the meeting.
Inter-city transport will be suspended from April 29, but goods transport and industries will remain open. During the period, no visits will be allowed in prison.
However, a statement announced, hospitals and medical services will be exempt from the restrictions.
In a Twitter post, Sindh government spokesperson Barrister Murtaza Wahab said that all government offices will operate with 20 percent attendance. In a separate statement, a spokesperson for the chief minister said that all government offices in the province will remain closed for an indefinite period of time. “[Provincial] secretaries will call in essential staffers while the rest will work from home,” he said.
The restrictions come as confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Sindh climbed to 278,545 after registering 952 new infections on Monday. The authorities conducted 16,938 tests to received back a positivity ratio of 5.62 percent, data suggested. The province also reported 6 new deaths, raising the toll to 4,599. Meanwhile, the recoveries rose by 158 to 262,296.
During the meeting, the health department informed the participants of the coronavirus situation in the province. The participants were told that the province has a total of 664 ICU beds and, of those, 453 beds with ventilators are unoccupied. The meeting was also told that the Dow University of Health Sciences (Ojha campus), the Trauma Centre, and Gambat Hospital have their own oxygen production plants.
Meanwhile, Sindh’s Coronavirus Task Force on Monday recommended deployment of the armed forces in the province for assistance to enforce the Covid-19 SOPs.
The armed forces will be deployed in Sindh to help enforcement of the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) in the province, sources said.
“Sindh Home Department will write a letter to the Ministry of Interior today to seek the military assistasnce,” according to sources.
The letter will be dispatched to the federal government today for deployment of armed forces in Sindh, a spokesperson said.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Sunday announced that deployment of Pakistan Army to implement COVID SOPs has been approved for three provinces- excluding Sindh.
The interior minister made the announcement soon in a video after he chaired a meeting on the COVID-19 situation and reviewed the deployment of armed forces in aid of civil administration.
Rasheed said that a notification for military deployment has been issued for three provinces, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir after the prime minister announced the decision.
“A decision on military deployment in Sindh is yet to be taken,” he said adding that the personnel of Pakistan Army would enforce strict COVID-19 SOPs along with civil administration.
