ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to PM on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill said on Thursday that due to the violation of Standard Operating Procedures for the coronavirus prevention, several big markets across the country will be shutdown.
According to Gill, the markets have been found to flouting the SOPs decided in the sessions of the National Command and Operation Centre.
He said that an operation in this regard has been initiated in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Earlier, the decision to shut down big markets was only for Punjab, but later on was extended to other provinces too.
On May 18, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered on that shopping malls and markets should remain open seven days a week, which were earlier shut down during the lockdown imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
For the third consecutive day, Pakistan recorded its highest number of positive cases in a day with 4,688 new infections and 82 deaths, showed the statistics shared by the NCOC.
The country, in the last 24 hours, also crossed the 20,000 testing sample capacity.
The latest surge in COVID-19 cases takes the nation-wide tally to 85,264 while the death toll has risen to 1,770.
