{"id":14664,"date":"2023-03-16T16:27:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T16:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/?p=14664"},"modified":"2023-03-16T16:28:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T16:28:29","slug":"people-advised-to-mask-up-in-crowded-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/health\/people-advised-to-mask-up-in-crowded-places\/","title":{"rendered":"People advised to mask up in &#8216;crowded&#8217; places"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People advised to mask up in &#8216;crowded&#8217; places. As the positivity ratio of coronavirus cases in the country closes to 3%, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Thursday advised citizens to mask up in \u201ccrowded tightly enclosed spaces\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mask wearing is recommended at crowded tightly enclosed spaces including healthcare facilities,&#8221; the National Institute of Health (NIH) quoted the NCOC.<\/p>\n<p>The NIH said the decision was taken by the NCOC due to the current COVID-19 disease trends across the country. It added that the guidelines will remain in place till April 30.<\/p>\n<p>The guideline comes after the countrywide positivity ration climbed to 2.98%. At least 14 patients are in critical care.<\/p>\n<p>As per the NIH, 4,334 test were conducted countrywide in the last 24 hours and 129 returned positive.<\/p>\n<p>In January this year, Pakistan confirmed the presence of one of the three dominant strains of COVID-19 in China and Omicron&#8217;s subvariant XBB&#8217;s presence.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Read more:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/sports\/ncoc-allows-pcb-to-conduct-psl-matches-for-fully-vaccinated-individuals.html\">NCOC allows PCB to conduct PSL matches for fully vaccinated individuals<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenomic surveillance is underway at NIH Islamabad. However, due to low positivity, only a few samples are available for sequencing. Our last batch showed increased cases of Omicron XBB,\u201d an official of the NIH Islamabad said.<\/p>\n<p>NIH officials also reiterated that there is no imminent threat of any major COVID-19 wave in Pakistan. However, we are continuously monitoring the situation and prepared for any situation, they added.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, scientists at Aga Khan University also confirmed to media that they had detected and reported the XBB sub-variant of the Omicron variant to the authorities in the country but added that they had not yet seen other two sub-variants, including BF.7 in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People advised to mask up in &#8216;crowded&#8217; places. As the positivity ratio of coronavirus cases in the country closes to 3%, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Thursday advised citizens to mask up in \u201ccrowded tightly enclosed spaces\u201d. &#8220;Mask wearing is recommended at crowded tightly enclosed spaces including healthcare facilities,&#8221; the National Institute [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":14665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[584,583,582,3255,2922,138],"class_list":["post-14664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-latest-news","tag-covid-19","tag-national-command-and-operation-centre","tag-ncoc","tag-nih","tag-omicron","tag-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}