KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah decided on Saturday to open primary schools from June 21 (Monday) and shrines, amusement parks, gyms and swimming pools from June 28.

Presiding over a meeting of the Provincial Task Force on Coronavirus at the CM House, he said that the vaccination centres would be closed only on Sunday (tomorrow) due to a shortage of vaccine doses.

The meeting was attended by provincial ministers, including Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, the chief secretary, provincial police chief, secretaries of home, finance, school education and industries departments, medical experts and representatives of Corps-5, Rangers and other organisations.

Briefing the task force, health department members said that on June 18, 13,970 tests were conducted against which 542 cases were detected that constituted a 3.9 per cent detection rate.

At this, the chief minister said that the overall detection rate had come down, but Karachi alone had an 8.08pc detection rate. “District East has 14 per cent detection rate, South 10 per cent, Central nine per cent, Korangi and Malir seven per cent each and Sukkur also seven per cent,” he said.

Vaccination centres to remain closed today

It was pointed out that during the last one week Sindh had 82 deaths. Of them Karachi East had 25 deaths, Central 25, Korangi eight, South and West six each and Sukkur four.

From June 3 to 18, 263 patients died. Of them, 75pc, or 151, were on ventilators, 19pc, or 49, off ventilators and 24pc, or 63, were at home.

The meeting was told that so far 42,532 passengers had landed at Jinnah Terminal, of whom 95 were detected as Covid-19 positive when tested.

Vaccination drive

The meeting was told that so far 3,243,988 doses of vaccines had been received, of which 2,873,857 had been utilised and only 370,141 were in balance.

In view of the available stock of vaccine doses, the chief minister decided to close all vaccination centres on Sunday (June 20).

The health minister said that the federal government had informed her department that the Sputnik vaccine would be provided to Sindh in the last week of June or the first week of July.

She added that 1.5 million doses of SinoVac would be provided on June 21, 700,000 doses of Cansino and 400,000 doses of PakVac on June 23.

At this, the chief minister said that from next week sufficient doses would be received here to speed up the vaccination drive.

Decisions

Mr Shah, after a thorough discussion with the taskforce members, decided to open shrines, indoor gyms, swimming pools and amusements parks with rides from June 28 subject to the fulfilment of some conditions such as ensuring social distancing, vaccinating staff members and wearing masks.

The Covid-19 situation would be reviewed again on June 28.

The other important decision taken in the meeting was the opening of primary schools from June 21.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2021