Tag: coronavirus

  • HEC orders universities to resume online classes

    The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has directed all universities and accredited institutions with sufficient resources to resume online classes as the government-ordered closure of schools, colleges and universities remains in place amid the spread of new coronavirus — COVID-19 — across Pakistan.

    In an official notification, HEC has reportedly asked all universities which have well-built learning management systems (LMS) to initiate online classes. However, universities facing technological, technical or spatial limitations can remain closed for academic activities till May 31 and mark the said period as summer vacations.

    In the meantime, these universities should make arrangements for conducting online classes in case the closure is extended because of the global pandemic, the notification read further.

    “Such universities shall plan, acquire, train and shall be able to execute an LMS from June 1 so that [the] ongoing semester could resume even in an eventuality of the extended closure of universities.”

    On Thursday, the federal government announced that education institutions across Pakistan would remain closed till May 31. The government also announced that the closure would be treated as summer vacations and if the coronavirus outbreak was dealt with in the meantime, the institutions would reopen in June.

    At a time when higher education institutions in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world are fast shifting to online learning in the wake of closures to contain the spread of coronavirus, Pakistani students took to social media last week and demanded the authorities converted closures into semester break.

    “We reject online education” popped up as one of the top trends in Pakistan on the microblogging website Twitter and the hash tag remained on the top for quite some time with most of the tweeters expressing concerns over no or poor internet connectivity and lack of, what they termed, “effectiveness” of the online education.

    They demanded that the institutions instead of shifting to online education should convert closures in semester breaks and hold on-campuses classes when campuses reopen in summer.

    According to The News, there are around 40 million students enrolled in public and private sector schools, colleges and universities of Pakistan. Of these, 24 million students are enrolled in primary schools, 7.6 million in middle schools, 4 million and over 1.5 million at secondary and higher secondary levels, respectively.

    Punjab alone has around 13 million students enrolled in government schools. This shows that in terms of numbers the real affectees are particularly the schoolchildren for whom there is no online education facility during the current countrywide closures.

  • VIDEOS: Pakistanis, Indians start robbing banks of hand sanitisers

    VIDEOS: Pakistanis, Indians start robbing banks of hand sanitisers

    From wearing masks to cleaning hands with soap and water or sanitiser every hour, people are trying every possible way to protect themselves from falling sick amid the coronavirus outbreak.

    With this leading to a shortage of sanitisers not just in Pakistan but also across the globe, videos showing rather desperate attempts by people to stay healthy in time of COVID-19, have started doing rounds over the internet.

    One such video was recently shared by journalist Naila Inayat, who wrote, “When you think no one is watching you.”

    The 32-second clip is a CCTV footage from March 27 of an ATM. The video shows a man taking out money from the machine. As soon as he puts the money in his pocket, he spots the bottle of hand sanitiser. Instead of pumping it in his hands, he puts the entire bottle inside his jacket and walks out of the vestibule.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    It, however, wasn’t the only video of its sort.

    Here’s another video shared by a user on Facebook last week.

    Meanwhile, similar videos have gone viral from across the border too.

    Have something to add to this story? Let The Current know in the comments.

  • Court orders jailing health secy for six months if PMDC building not opened in an hour

    Court orders jailing health secy for six months if PMDC building not opened in an hour

    Expressing displeasure with the federal government over its failure to revive the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday ordered jailing the health secretary for six months if the building was not opened in an hour.

    PMDC — a statutory regulatory authority that maintained the official register of medical and dental practitioners in Pakistan — was in October last year dissolved and replaced by the Pakistan Medical Commission after the president signed the Pakistan Medical Commission Ordinance 2019 for the regulation of the medical profession.

    On February 11, the IHC declared the federal government’s decision to dissolve the PMDC null and void. The court also issued contempt notices to the federal government and health department for not implementing its orders.

    According to SAMAA, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani resumed hearing the contempt case on Monday. He said the PMDC should be made functional today. The authorities should break the lock on its building and make its registrar sit there. “A report should be submitted to the court in one hour,” the judge said.

    The health secretary will be sent to jail for six months if the building is not opened in an hour, he remarked. “I have given you three dates already and you haven’t done anything.”

    Not implementing court’s orders is contempt, the judge remarked. “This is a slap on the court’s face.” Such behaviour does not suit the federal government, said Justice Kayani, adding that the government should be ashamed.

    The court also asked if PMDC employees were getting their salaries or not. The lawyer of the employees said that the they haven’t been paid in over five months.

    TOP COURT AGAINST RELEASE OF PRISONERS AMID COVID-19 OUTBREAK:

    Meanwhile, the Supreme Court (SC) has refrained high courts and all governments to pass any orders regarding the release of prisoners amid the coronavirus outbreak.

    According to journalist Hasnaat Malik, the top court has also suspended the implementation of IHC orders regarding release of under-trial prisoners.

    Punjab had last week decided to let go of almost 20,000 of its 46,000 prisoners amid the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis as jails in Pakistan remain overcrowded.

    Jail superintendents, who had reached out to the courts to approve the bail of prisoners handed sentences of seven years or less, had reportedly taken the step in light of special instructions.

    Bail requests were also filed for prisoners jailed for petty crimes, as well as the elderly, or criminals over 60 years of age.

    The development had come days after IHC Chief Justice (CJ) Athar Minullah had ordered for bails to be issued for prisoners facing trial for minor crimes in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. He had made the decision while hearing a case of 1,362 incarcerated prisoners.

    The top IHC judge had noted how prisons in Pakistan were in dire straits and that the situation would get out of control if any prisoner got infected.

  • COVID-19 in Gilgit: Another health worker passes as region awaits Chinese help

    Days after Dr Usama Riaz died due to coronavirus, another health worker in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) has passed away.

    According to reports, 55-year-old Malik Ashdar was looking after suspected and confirmed coronavirus patients in Nagar district, but due to the lack of protective gear among health workers, he soon developed coronavirus symptoms. After spending a week in an isolation centre, he passed away on Sunday while his test reports came hours later, confirming his infection.

    A number of health workers continue to perform their duties in the area without proper protective gear. There are currently 34 confirmed cases of the virus in the district, including 11 locally-transmitted cases, but health officials and residents suspect there could be more cases and have urged the federal government to ensure the provision of better facilities.

    Muhammad Jamil, a local resident, told Pakistan Today that there are currently 100 suspects who are either waiting for their test results or are awaiting the test itself. When asked about Ashdar, he said that the health worker was not given proper treatment in the isolation centre.

    Although his test results came positive, the GB Information Department is yet to confirm his death as the second coronavirus casualty in the area.

    The report also quoted an official of the GB Health Department as saying that due to the non-availability of testing kits, no suspected patient was tested in the past three days. The official said that the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Gilgit has limited resources and the fact that samples have to be sent there manually also causes a delay in treating patients effectively. However, he added, China’s assistance in this regard would enable GB to conduct more tests.

  • Seven people quarantine themselves on a tree in India

    Seven people quarantine themselves on a tree in India

    Seven migrant workers, who came back home to West Bengal’s Purulia district from Chennai amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown, perched on a banyan tree to remain in quarantine in the absence of separate room for self-isolation in their small huts, Gulf News reported.

    After several days in their ‘temporary home’, the workers were on Saturday ordered to come down by the local administration.

    The workers, all residents of Bangidiha village of Purulia district, said as they live in one-room mud huts with their families, there is no way they can keep themselves in isolation.

    However, none of them have displayed symptoms linked to COVID-19, nor have they undergone any test for the disease.

    “At present we don’t have any health issues. But in case we are detected positive for the disease at a later date, then at least none of the villagers will be infected because of us,” said one of the workers Bijay Singh Laya.

    The workers reached Kharagpur junction station on Sunday last from Chennai where they underwent thermal screening and tests but the doctors did not find any symptom of the disease. “However, they asked us to stay in quarantine for 14 days as a safety measure”.

    “But we don’t have any separate personal room in our home. So, we decided to live on the branches of the banyan tree just outside our village,” he said.

    The seven labourers tied their beds to the branches of the tree, and used a mosquito net to prevent themselves from getting bitten.

    Their family members brought them a daily ration of rice, pulses, and vegetables, along with other cooking implements and left after keeping those under the tree, while strictly maintaining the norms of social distancing.

    “We get down from the tree, cook, and then go up again,” said one of the workers.

    Villagers on their part kept night vigil by turn to ensure the tree-dwellers are not devoured by wild animals from the nearby forest or bitten by venomous snakes.

    However, when the matter came to the attention of the local administration they asked the workers to return to their village.

  • Coronavirus: Pakistani celebrities step up to help those in need

    As the coronavirus lockdown puts a halt to all economic activities in the country. Those most affected by the lockdown and pandemic are daily wage workers who have no work in this lockdown. In these stressful and challenging times, Pakistani celebrities including Maya Ali, Shahid Afridi, Anoushey Ashraf, Nomi Ansari, Aisam ul Haq Qureshi and Asim Jofa among others have stepped forward to help those in need. Check out their initiatives below:

    Maya Ali

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-KGnBYHihv/
    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-SUBpKn88o/

    Hira Mani and Mani

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-QfM7on4JU/

    Nomi Ansari and Anoushey Ashraf

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-AFRdCDWcg/

    Aisam ul Haq Qureshi and Shiza Hassan

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-IO8NKJP3H/

    Shahid Afridi

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B9_4hojlMQS/
    https://twitter.com/SAfridiOfficial/status/1241363432923947008?s=20
    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-R3pF7let5/

    Sana Safinaz

    Ali Zafar

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Pi9BIlyhk/
  • Fake tweets about animals in Venice amid corona lockdown go viral

    Fake tweets about animals in Venice amid corona lockdown go viral

    Bogus stories of wild animals flourishing in quarantined cities gives false hope — and viral fame.

    Scattered amid a relentless barrage of news about coronavirus cases, quarantine and medical news on Twitter, some happy stories softened the blows: Swans had returned to deserted Venetian canals. Dolphins too. And a group of elephants had sauntered through a village in Yunnan, China, gotten drunk off corn wine, and passed out in a tea garden.

    These reports of wildlife triumphs in countries hard-hit by the novel coronavirus got hundreds of thousands of retweets. They went viral on Instagram and Tik Tok. They made news headlines. If there’s a silver lining of the pandemic, people said, this was it— animals were bouncing back, running free in a humanless world.

    But it wasn’t real.

    The swans in the viral posts regularly appear in the canals of Burano, a small island in the greater Venice metropolitan area, where the photos were taken. The “Venetian” dolphins were filmed at a port in Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of miles away. No one has figured out where the drunken elephant photos came from, but a Chinese news report debunked the viral posts: While elephants did recently come through a village in Yunnan Province, China, their presence isn’t out of the norm, they aren’t the elephants in the viral photos, and they didn’t get drunk and pass out in a tea field.

  • Boy who licked a toilet seat in viral video has coronavirus

    Boy who licked a toilet seat in viral video has coronavirus

    Social-media influencer Larz told his followers he was in a hospital after catching the coronavirus. The news came just a few days after he filmed himself licking a toilet seat in a public bathroom as part of a bizarre ‘Coronavirus Challenge’.

    The 21-year-old from California tweeted: “I tested positive for Coronavirus,” according to the Daily Mail, but his Twitter account @GayShawnMendes has now been suspended.

    He also uploaded a video to his Instagram account that appears to show him lying in a hospital bed and “doped up” on medication. His Instagram page is also full of badly edited photographs of him hanging out with celebrities, so his claims should be taken with a pinch of salt.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/B-LaoztB34y/?igshid=w73ji8tfc5cn

    The challenge started as an obvious ploy for attention from the TikTok and Instagram influencer Ava Louise. She filmed herself licking an airplane toilet seat, adding the caption: “Please RT this so people can know how to properly be sanitary on the airplane.”

    She told Insider she did it for “clout” because she didn’t want the coronavirus getting more attention than her. She added that “hot blondes” could recover from anything so there was “no harm done”.

    In a follow-up video called “Why I licked the toilet seat, now I’m running for president,” Ava Louise said she was trolling the mainstream media with the stunt and the toilet seat she licked was on a private plane.

    Another tasteless — and dangerous — prank some young wannabe influencers are taking part in is coughing on produce in supermarkets, according to the New York Post.

    One 26-year-old man, named Cody Pfister, was charged with making a terrorist threat after filming himself licking a shelf of toiletries in Walmart on March 11, the Daily Mail reported.

  • Indian ‘super spreader’ guru leads to 40,000 quarantines

    Indian ‘super spreader’ guru leads to 40,000 quarantines

    At least 40,000 people who may have caught the coronavirus from a ‘super-spreader’ guru are under strict quarantine in 20 villages of Indian Punjab after linked to just one man.

    According to BBC, the 70-year-old guru, Baldev Singh, had returned from a trip to Europe’s virus epicentre Italy and Germany when he went preaching in more than a dozen villages in Punjab state. The 70-year-old died of coronavirus — a fact found out only after his death, according to the BBC.

    The guru and his two associates — who have also tested positive — ignored self-isolation orders on their return from Europe, and were on their preaching tour until Singh fell ill and died. He had visited a large gathering to celebrate the Sikh festival of Hola Mohalla shortly before he died. The six-day festival attracts around 10,000 people every day.

    A week after his death, 19 of his relatives have tested positive.

    India has 640 confirmed cases of the virus, of which 30 are in Punjab. However, experts worry that the real number of positive cases could be far higher given that the South Asian country has one of the lowest testing rates in the world. There are fears that an outbreak in the country of 1.3 billion people could result in a catastrophe.

  • Coronavirus: ‘Military sidelined PM Imran to enforce countrywide lockdown,’ NYT claims

    A report in The New York Times has claimed that the military “sidelined Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan to enforce a countrywide lockdown” last week as the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan worsened while the premier rejected calls from healthcare workers and provincial officials to enforce the same, saying it would ruin the economy.

    “[Imran] Khan rejected calls from healthcare workers and provincial officials to enforce a lockdown, saying it would ruin the economy. Instead, he urged citizens to practice social distancing and ordered everyone back to work, many returning to the sweltering, cramped factories that are the backbone of the economy,” the report said.

    It added, “Finally, the military stepped in on Sunday and sidelined Khan, working with provincial governments to deploy across the country and enforce a lockdown. They erected a maze of military checkpoints in cities like Karachi and sent baton-wielding police officers to violently disperse crowds.”

    While the report suggested that the action might be too late, it is pertinent to note that governments of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab had last Sunday sought the army’s help in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, asking it to assist civil institutions as the number of confirmed cases in the country crossed 600. The requests had come a day after the Sindh government’s decision to impose a complete lockdown and seek military help under Article 245 of the Constitution.

    The 18th Amendment provides the provinces with significant decision-making autonomy. While Sindh imposed a lockdown on March 23 and requisitioned the army to help carry it out, other provinces followed with varying levels of the halt.

    The Interior Ministry had approved the deployment of the army across the provinces and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Major General Babar Iftikhar had on Monday confirmed Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s directions for troops and medical resources to be deployed “as per need” in order to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

    Addressing a press briefing, the military spokesperson had said that the government summoned army for assistance in accordance with the constitution. “This is the time to take tough and difficult decisions on an individual, familial and societal basis.”

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