Pakistan reduces quarantine period to five days

Pakistan has decided to reduce the quarantine period for coronavirus patients from nine days to five days in case of no fever for 24 hours without medication.

Initially, the quarantine period in Pakistan was 14 days which was later reduced to nine days last year.

As per the Nat­ional Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), the new guidelines is to "provide Covid-19 patients, their attendants and health care providers with the latest information regarding home isolation (and discharge) when they or more of the household members get infected with the virus".

The new guidelines suggest that people with coronavirus should isolate for five days if they are ‘asymptomatic’ or their ‘symptoms are resolving’ (without fever for 24 hours).

Pakistan reports over 7,000 Covid-19 cases for second consecutive day

"For people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second vaccine dose and have not yet received their booster dose, quarantine after exposure for 5 days followed by strict mask use for an additional 5 days."

"If a 5-day quarantine is not feasible, it is imperative that an exposed person wear a well-fitting mask at all times when around others for 10 days after exposure."

The forum further said that those who have received their booster shot but have tested positive do not need to quarantine but "should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure".

"For all those exposed, best practice would also include a test for SARS-CoV-2 at day 5 after exposure. If symptoms occur, individuals should immediately quarantine until a negative test confirms symptoms are not attributable to Covid-19,” NCOC said.

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Pakistan reports over 7,000 Covid-19 cases

Pakistan's coronavirus positivity ratio was recorded at 12.53% while the number of cases continued to be over 7,000 for the second consecutive day.

During the last 24 hours, 57,401 tests were conducted out of which 7,195 came out positive. The nationwide coronavirus tally has now increased to 1,302,486.

There are 1,113 critical cases and 76,617 active Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, the virus claimed eight more lives, taking the fatalities to 29,105. Moreover, 833 people recovered during the last 24 hours, taking the total number to 1,269,078.