The National Command and Operation Centre’s (NCOC) has announced on Monday to abolish Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) for inbound passengers from February 8.
As per the details, the decision has been taken during a session of the country’s nerve centre of Covid-19 response.
It has been decided that the all RAT tests would be abolished, except for deportees from foreign countries and for non-vaccinated individuals arriving from land border terminals
The session was chaired by Planning Minister Asad Umar, and matters pertaining to the epidemic data, national vaccination progress, inbound health protocols and the second phase of the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) tournament was discussed during the session.
It is pertinent to note that for PSL, the NCOC allowed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to conduct the matches in Lahore with 50 per cent stadium capacity for fully vaccinated spectators till February 15.
However, from February 16 onwards, the PCB has been allowed to conduct matches with 100 per cent capacity, provided all spectators are vaccinated.
Pakistan reported 38 Covid-19 related deaths and 3,338 positive cases during the last 24 hour period.
According to statistics issued by the NCOC, 44,779 tests were conducted while the positivity ratio was at 7.45 per cent. It added that about 1,684 Covid-19 patients are still in critical condition.
On Sunday, Umar lauded the door-to-door Covid-19 immunisation drive saying that the country had registered the highest daily vaccination records during the past three days in a row.
Earlier this month, the government had stepped up the ongoing anti-coronavirus vaccine campaign by taking it door-to-door amid a surge in coronavirus cases fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The NCOC revealed that the February 1-14 vaccine campaign would cover all people above the age of 12 years.
The NCOC termed the two-week door-to-door vaccination campaign as ‘Every Pakistani Safe from Coronavirus’
