Punjab government announced Monday that multiple residential areas of Lahore will be sealed for the period of next two weeks from tomorrow’s midnight (Tuesday) as the provincial capital has become an epicentre of COVID-19 cases.

Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid informed this while addressing a press conference in Lahore on Monday.

She said departmental stores, food operating businesses and pharmacies would remain open in the sealed area. “Daily 1,000 cases are being emerged and reported in Lahore,” she said. 

Dr Yasmin said people should follow the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to curtail the further spread of virus.

The areas which are going to be sealed include Cantonment, Walled City Lahore, Nishter Town, Mozang, Shadbadh, Gulberg, Shahdarra, Harbanspura, Allama Iqbal Town, and few other housing societies in Lahore.

“In previous two days a large exercise was conducted in this regard and hotspots for coronavirus has been identified,” Yasmin Rashid added.

The Punjab Health Minister said all those areas would be sealed wherever the SOPs violations are found.

She said Punjab government would further decide the future course of action reviewing the situation after the two weeks. “We are making a strategy for the cases-hit areas in Lahore too,” she added.

She said there was no truth in rumours of the shortage of medical facilities in Punjab or the provincial capital. She said 15 new ventilators have been installed in Meo Hospital while 35 new ventilators have been provided at PKLI.

She appealed to the masses to strictly follow the SOPs so that economic activities could have been continued and people could earn their livelihoods.

Dr Yasmin said that those saying that the PTI government has failed are wrong. "If our government has failed, so has every other government in the world," she said.

"The media is comparing us to New Zealand and Taiwan. The population of New Zealand is half of that of Lahore's. Controlling the virus there is much easier than controlling it in a thickly populated country like ours. People don't understand that this is a viral infection. Even in China, where they followed strict measures with commendable discipline, there is a resurgence of cases."