By Haneen Abbas
Karachi: As the cases of Corona increase manyfold posing threat across country, City administration on Saturday forced smart and micro-smart lockdowns in many emerging hotspots across Karachi to deal with growing cases of Covid-19 as part of the second wave of the novel coronavirus, reported the Dawn news.
Official sources argued that it was necessary to ensure quarantine, contact tracing and testing to minimise the transmission and spread of Covid-19, in addition to compulsory mask wearing and social distancing interventions.
As a result, the Deputy Commissioners in different districts of the city under Section 3 of the Sindh Epidemic Diseases Act, amended in 2020, ordered smart lock-downs and micro-smart lock-downs in the streets and houses of specific areas for at least two weeks.
In the Central District, as many as 109 houses were put under micro-smart lockdown along with their streets in different sections. The areas included North Nazimabad, the Firdous Colony in Nazimabad, and a few North Karachi Sectors.
All types of industrial units in these areas will also remain closed and no home delivery/takeaway of any kind from restaurants and fast food joints will be permitted.
No private or family get-togethers will be permitted in the home and no gatherings of three or more persons will be allowed in the designated areas, according to the order of Deputy Commissioner-South.
The main shopping mall in Clifton was sealed on Saturday by Deputy Commissioner-South for the breach of SOPs notified by the provincial government. During his visit to the mall, the Deputy Commissioner also fined 15 Rs500 people each for not wearing masks.
Three houses in the Korangi subdivision and two houses in the Shah Faisal and Model Colony were put under a micro lockdown in the Korangi district.
The lockdown in the designated areas will remain effective until Dec 5 or until the infected people are healed in compliance with the guidelines provided by the provincial government.
As many as 17 more patients of Covid-19 died overnight and 1,199 new cases emerged when 11,537 tests were conducted.
According to reports stated by the Dawn, so far 1,883,799 tests were conducted against which 162,227 cases were detected, of them 90pc, or 145,525 patients, recovered, including 382 overnight.
According to the Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in a statement, currently 13,886 patients are under treatment, of them 13,333 are in home isolation, nine at isolation centres and 544 in different hospitals.