Pakistan's National Command and Opera­tion Centre (NCOC) on Covid-19 has announced new curbs on commercial and social activities in 11 of the worst-hit cities.

The affected cities are Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Hyderabad, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Peshawar and Quetta, Dawn news reported.

The NCOC said that since 80 per cent of the total Covid-19 cases were reported from these cities, commercial activities — markets, shopping malls, marriage halls and restaurants — will be closed at 10 p.m. and amusement/public parks at 6 p.m. daily from Thursday onwards.

Wearing of masks has been made mandatory at public places and violators will be fined 6,000-35,000 PKR, along with a six-month imprisonment.

"All the parameters i.e. positivity of tests, mortality rate, admissions in hospitals, etc, are increasing. Though there is no exponential increase in cases, I believe that the time has come to take steps to control the virus, otherwise things can become worse," Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Faisal Sultan told Dawn news.

According to the NCOC, presently there were 4,374 lockdowns, affecting 30,610 people.

As of Thursday, Pakistan has registered a total of 331,108 Covid-19 cases and 6,775 deaths.

(IANS)