Amid a rise in the coronavirus positivity rate across Sindh, especially in Karachi, the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) and the provincial health department agreed on Tuesday to increase testing to curb the infections.
The meeting between the health department and the NCOC came after the latter was directed by Health Minister Qadir Patel to approach the former and formulate a strategy to contain the virus.
“It was discussed to increase testing, contact tracing and implementation of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), especially mask wearing at all crowded places, and [during] domestic travel by air, railways or road,” a statement by the National Institute of Health (NIH) said.
Last week, the Sindh government revived non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) guidelines for Karachi to mitigate the “alarming” rise of Covid-19 infections. As per the directives issued by director general health services Sindh, the new NPIs included the wearing of masks, social distancing at public gatherings, and the reduction of passenger occupancy in public transport to 70 per cent.
