Sindh relaxes COVID-19 restrictions in province

Karachi: The Sindh government has announced relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions in the province.

The meeting of the provincial coronavirus Task Force held with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in the chair, decided to ease the lockdown restrictions following decrease in coronavirus cases in the province.

The meeting was briefed that the coronavirus positivity ratio in Karachi had been 12.45 per cent on June 1, 2021 that had decreased to 8.25 per cent on June 5, but the COVID-19 death rate remained 1.6 per cent.

The meeting allowed traders in the province to keep their shops and businesses open from 5 am to 8 pm daily. Earlier, the traders and shopkeepers were allowed to keep the shops open till 6 pm daily.

The Task Force also allowed restaurants to offer outdoor dine-in services till midnight. The retailers and restaurant owners have been offered these relaxations on condition that workers associated with the shops and eateries will get the coronavirus vaccination in the next two weeks.

After two weeks, the government will start checking the vaccination status of the workers of shops and restaurants.

The CM also ordered Karachi’s Commissioner to reopen the city’s beach for the public but with display of signboards and banners asking people to observe safety precautions against COVID-19.

The Task Force also decided to grant permissions to beauty and hair salons to reopen with due observance of the standard operating procedures against the spread of coronavirus infection.

The meeting decided that marriage halls would be allowed to reopen after two weeks. The Task Force decided to allow resumption of classroom-based teaching of students of Class 9 and senior classes.

Sindh CM asked the Education Minister to ensure that staff members of the educational institutions should get the coronavirus vaccination at the earliest.

He said the coronavirus vaccination was compulsory for retailers, school staff, and workers associated with the transport sector.