ISLAMABAD: After a brief delay, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) finally issued revised coronavirus guidelines and SOPs for the education, restaurant, entertainment, and other sectors on Wednesday as Pakistan continues as its battle against a fifth wave of the pandemic and struggles to contain the spread of the Omicron variant of Corona Virus.

In cities and districts with positivity higher than 10%, the classes for children under 12 years will continue on “staggered” days, classes will be conducted daily for fully-vaccinated students above 12 years of age.

In the cities and districts which have a positivity ratio of up to 10%, the classes will continue as usual, but with stringent COVID-19 protocols intact, as per NCOC’s guidelines.

With effect from February 1, at least one dose for students above 12 years will be mandatory and no exemption other than medical reasons will be entertained, the NCOC guidelines stated.

“Aggressive sentinel testing in educational institutions will be carried out for targeted closures in high disease prevalence education institutes,” NCOC said.

Federating units in consultations with health authorities will set number of cases or infection rate as benchmark for closure of education institutes, the forum stated.

The decisions were taken during an NCOC session held in the capital with Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar in the chair, a statement from the forum said. The forum took a “detailed review” of the current trend of the pandemic in the country and after a “deliberate and consultative process”, it agreed on following the non-pharmaceutical interventions