The academic process is set to resume across the country from 15 September following a steady decline in Coronavirus cases nationwide.
Last week, Federal Education Minister, Shafqat Mehmood, had announced the phase-wise reopening of all educational institutes after receiving approval from the National Command Operation Center (NCOC).
For the past two weeks, Find My Doctor, a promising Pakistani healthcare startup, has been testing students and staff members through rapid antigen tests before the grand reopening. Just in case if you are wondering, a rapid antigen test can detect both current and previous infections.
So far, over 2,500 individuals have been tested across Karachi, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Lahore, and Multan.
Shockingly, 13% of the students and staff members who were tested turned out COVID-19 positive.
“Find My Doctor” said they conducted these tests in partnership with Getz Pharma.
In fact, in a separate report, 25% of the staff members of a school in Karachi turned out Coronavirus positive. Of those, 90% did not exhibit any symptoms for the viral infection, meaning all were asymptomatic cases.
In contrast, the official figures provided by the government show a Coronavirus positivity rate of just 2% during the same period.
The figures provided by Find My Doctor corroborates the findings of a seroprevalence study conducted by the Aga Khan University (AKU) which claimed that 9 out of 10 Karachi residents afflicted with Coronavirus exhibited no symptoms of the viral infection.
So far, Pakistan has reported 300,371 cases of the COVID-19, of which 288,206 have recovered. The country has reported 6,370 deaths due to Coronavirus.
In the last 24 hours, 548 new cases and 5 deaths were confirmed nationwide.
Also Read:Balochistan Dept of Health Announces 23 New COVID-19 Cases
