Several provinces in Pak reopen schools after drop in COVID-19 cases

Majority of the provinces in Pakistan, including Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Monday reopened its educational institutions after the country reported a drop in the number of positive cases of coronavirus.

The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), the main body monitoring the country's battle against COVID-19, had initially allowed reopening of educational institutions from May 24 in all districts with less than five per cent positivity rate but delayed it for the rest of the country until June 7.

"Educational institutions reopened in Pakistan from Monday as the country reported low cases recently," an official statement said.

While Punjab has opened all of its educational schools, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have opened its schools for students from standard 9 and above, the Express Tribune reported.

Sindh has decided not to open the school for its primary students and decided to wait for a few more time to let the pandemic settle down, the report said.

Sindh's education minister Saeed Ghani said the decision will be revisited after improvement in the pandemic. The ministry of National Health Services reported 58 deaths in the last 24 hours due to COVID-19, taking the number of fatalities to 21,323.

The country also reported 1,490 new positive cases, taking the total number of infections in the country to 933,630. It said the number of active patients was 47,376 as so far 864,931 patients have recovered.