Pakistan opens all educational institutions, six months after closure due to COVID-19

Pakistan on Wednesday opened all the educational institutions which 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 were opened under strict restrictions and were told 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 a decision was taken to open all the educational institutions after analysing the coronavirus situation comprehensively. "Only 1 per cent 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 in Pakistan reached 312,263 after 747 new cases emerged in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of National Health Services said. Another five patients died, taking the number of deaths to 6,479 while some 467 patients were in critical conditions.

The data showed that 296,881 people fully recovered. The authorities performed another 32,031 tests in the last 24 hours, taking the total tests done so far to 3,514,237.