{"id":14466,"date":"2020-05-11T11:59:17","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T06:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/?p=14466"},"modified":"2020-05-11T11:59:17","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T06:59:17","slug":"pakistan-relaxes-restrictions-small-businesses-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/14466","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan relaxes restrictions, small businesses open"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pakistan on Monday further relaxed coronavirus restriction to open small markets and shops across the country despite a sharp rise in cases.<\/p>\n

According to officials, all the small markets, shops, and allied industries of the construction sector opened today under a federal government announcement last week.<\/p>\n

“As per the government decision, all shops and small markets will open from morning to evening for four days a week,” Ajmal Khan Wazir, spokesman of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, told Anadolu Agency.<\/p>\n

Wazir requested the public to follow standard procedures to prevent the virus\u2019 spread.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Prime Minister Imran Khan announced a gradual exit from the nationwide lockdown despite a surging number of coronavirus cases in the country.<\/p>\n

Khan said the lockdown has badly hurt laborers, small businessmen, and the general public.<\/p>\n

“Our tax revenues dropped 35% while exports also fell due to the lockdown,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, the government extended the closure of education institutions across the country until July 15.<\/p>\n

In March, Pakistan imposed a nationwide lockdown, closing shops, markets, shopping centers, and offices except for emergency services, in a desperate move to curb surging COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n

Last month, Khan announced the reopening of “low-risk” industries, including construction, agriculture, e-commerce, paper and packaging, to stem a deepening economic meltdown caused by the virus.<\/p>\n

The government also allowed congregational prayer in mosques for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.<\/p>\n

The number of novel coronavirus cases in Pakistan, the second worst-hit country in the region after India, has risen to 30,931 after 1,476 new cases were reported in last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry.<\/p>\n

The death toll in the country also climbed to 667 after 28 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours.<\/p>\n

So far 8,212 people have recovered and been discharged from the hospitals.<\/p>\n

Globally, there have been over 4.1 million cases of the virus, along with nearly 283,000 deaths and over 1.4 million recoveries, according to data compiled by the US\u2019 Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD Pakistan on Monday further relaxed coronavirus restriction to open small markets and shops across the country despite a sharp rise in cases. According to officials, all the small markets, shops, and allied industries of the construction sector opened today under a federal government announcement last week. “As per the government decision, all shops and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,31,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-news","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14467,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14466\/revisions\/14467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}