KARACHI (Staff Reporter): Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah presiding over a meeting of Provincial task Force on Corona here on Saturday at CM House has decided to open primary schools from June 21 and shrines, amusement parks, gyms and swimming pools from June 28.
The vaccination centers due to shortage of doses would be closed only on this Sunday (tomorrow).The meeting was attended by provincial ministers, Dr Azra Fazal, Saeed Ghani, Nasir Shah, advisor Murtaza Wahab, Parliamentary Secretary Qasim Siraj Soomro, Chief secretary, IG Police, ACS Home, PSCM, Adl IG Karachi, Secretaries – Finance Hassan Naqvi, School Education Ahmed Bux Narejo, Industries Riazuddin, Dr Bari, Dr Faisal, Dr Sara of WHO, Dr Qaiser Sajjad and representatives of Corps-5, Rangers and other organizations.
The health department briefing the task force members said that on June 18, 13,970 tests were conducted against which 542 cases were detected that constituted 3.9 per cent detection rate. At this the chief minister said that overall detection rate has come down, but Karachi alone has 8.08 percent detection rate.
“It’s districts- East has 14 percent detection rate, South 10 percent, Central nine percent, Korangi and Malir seven percent each and Sukkur also seven percent,” he said.
It was pointed out that during the last one week stemming from COVID-19 Sindh had 82 deaths, of them Karachi East 25 deaths, Central 25, Korangi eight, South and West six each and Sukkur four.
In the month of June 3 to 18, 263 patients have died, of them 75 percent or 151 on ventilators, 19 percent or 49 off ventilators and 24 percent or 63 at homes. The meeting was told that so far 42,532 passengers landed at Jinnah Terminal, of whom 95 were detected as positive when tested.Vaccination: The meeting was told that so far 3,243,988 doses of vaccines have been received, of them 2,873,857 utilized and only 370,141 were in balance. The chief minister, keeping in view the available stock of the vaccine doses, decided to close all vaccination centers only on this Sunday (today June 20).
Minister Health Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho said that the federal government has informed her department that Sputnik vaccine would be provided to Sindh by the last week of June or first week of July. She added that 1.5 million doses of SinoVac would be provided on June 21, 700,000 doses of Casino 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: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, after a thorough discussion with the task force 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 mask is mandatory. The COVID situation would be reviewed again on June 28, 2021. The other important decision taken in the meeting was the opening of primary schools from June 21.
