Karachi school suspends classes for grades 1-5 amid rising coronavirus cases

• Private school decides to hold online classes for grades 1-5.
• Only students of grades 9-10 will attend classes every day.
• Karachi's positivity ratio reaches 30.83%.

KARACHI: A private school in the metropolis has suspended on-campus classes for grades 1-5 as the city recorded a positivity ratio of 30.83% in the last 24 hours, Geo News reported Monday.

The school, situated in Gulshan-e-Iqbal block 10, has said in a statement that students of grades 1-5 will take online classes, while students of grades 6-8 will be attending on-campus classes in groups.

The students attending classes will be divided into two groups, who will attend school with a difference of three days, the statement said.

The statement said that only students of classes nine and 10 would attend on-campus school every day.

"Students of ages 12 [and above] will not be allowed to enter the school premises without their vaccination cards," the statement added.

While the school has made a unilateral decision to suspend classes, the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) will decide on schools' closure after further testing.

The federal and provincial governments have started mulling over restrictions as coronavirus cases are increasing across the country due to the Omicron variant.

Pakistan's active coronavirus cases jumped past 35,000 for the first time since October 15, 2021, when the country recorded 26,974 cases, the NCOC's data showed Monday morning.

As many as 4,340 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours after 49,809 tests were taken. The active case count stood at 35,884.

This is the third consecutive day of Pakistan recording COVID-19 cases over the 4,000-mark, which is the highest daily tally since August 25 last year.