By Sajjad Hussain
AGENCY : Pakistan on Wednesday opened all its educational institutions which had remained shut for nearly six months due to the coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 3 lakh people in the country.
Both private and public schools have been opened under strict restrictions with caution by the authorities to follow the standard operating procedures to contain the spread of the contagious coronavirus.
Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood said that the maximum number of students were enrolled in the primary schools and they suffered most due to the closure of the institutions.
He said the decision was made to open all educational institutions after comprehensively analysing the coronavirus situation. Only 1 percent infection was detected in educational institutions after the authorities performed 171,436 coronavirus tests in the education sector since the institutions reopened on September 15 under the phase 1 of the reopening of the institutions, Mahmood said on Tuesday while interacting with the media.
“Keeping in view this data, it has been decided to resume primary level classes,” he added. Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan has reached 312,263 after 747 new cases emerged in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of National Health Services said.
Another five people have died, taking the number of deaths to 6,479. Around 467 patients are in critical condition. The data shows that 296,881 people have fully recovered. Authorities have performed an additional 32,031 tests in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of tests to 3,514,237.PTI
