ABDUL RASHEED AZAD

ISLAMABAD: The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has announced to start Covid-19 vaccination drive of children above 12 years of age.

A statement issued by the NCOC here on Tuesday said, “Vaccination age limit for general population has been lowered to 12 years. Presently, Pfizer vaccine (2 doses) will be administered to children above 12 years”.

NCOC Chairman Asad Umar in a tweet said, “NCOC meeting decided to start vaccination of all 12 years and older. Special drive will be run for vaccination at schools to make it easier for children to be vaccinated.”

The government has already warned the people to get their Covid-19 vaccine jabs as early as possible otherwise, basic services rendered to public would be banned for non-vaccinated individuals from October 1.

The nerve centre of the country in its fight against the deadly contagious disease of coronavirus took to social networking site Twitter to announce the warning as part of its obligatory vaccination regime to ensure maximum complete inoculation of the eligible population.

The forum wrote, “Warning! From October 1, all facilities used in daily life will be closed to all people who have not been vaccinated.”

The forum emphasised the general public to get their vaccination done as soon as possible and keep life going.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s daily Covid-19 case count, Tuesday, was reported below 1,500 mark for the first time in over two months as the health authorities reported 1,400 fresh cases.

After the detection of 1,400 fresh Covid-19 cases, the national tally of the coronavirus cases has reached 1,241,825 since the pandemic outbreak

The country last reported less than 1,500 cases on July 23 at 1,425 cases.

The number of active cases, too, went to the lowest level since the last two months (July 20) at 49,968 cases.

The active cases, along with the positivity rate, have been consistently falling since the last month with new recoveries surpassing fresh cases reported almost daily.

Among the active cases, 4,015 patients are under critical care.

According to the NCOC data, in the past 24 hours, another 41 people have lost their lives to the infection pushing the national death toll to 27,638.

This makes it the fourth consecutive day the country has reported less than 50 deaths in a single day.

With 2,042 recoveries in the past 24 hours, the tally for recoveries now stands at 1,164,219, the NCOC data showed.

The positivity ratio stands at 3.17 percent across the country.

Two days ago, Pakistan’s positivity rate went below four percent for the first time in almost four months.

The Covid-19 infections are decreasing in Pakistan, with 2,059 new infections reported on average each day.

That’s 35 percent of the peak as the highest daily average reported on June 17.

The health authorities, in the past 24 hours, administered a total 962,907 Covid-19 vaccine jabs to the people taking the nationwide tally to 79,533,208, of which 27,331,678 have been fully vaccinated, while 57,897,219 people are partially vaccinated.