Omicron surge: Education ministers’ conference on schools closure postponed 

Islamabad: An inter-provincial education ministers' conference under chaired by Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood to discuss surging cases of coronavirus has been postponed.

According to details, the meeting was scheduled to be held 11 a.m. today to discuss the current coronavirus situation in the country and closure of schools to prevent the virus spread.

As the country continues its battle to contain the spread of Omicron, the meeting was supposed to decide whether the current coronavirus situation warrants the closure of schools or not, but was deferred to next week, announced the Ministry for Federal Education and Professional Traning.

In a notification on Wednesday, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training announced that Mehmood will chair the 34th meeting of the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC) at 11am to decide on schools' closure and other matters. The meeting will be held via video link.

As the fifth wave of COVID-19 intensifies in Pakistan, as many as 3,019 new infections were logged in the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 1,312,267. 

According to the latest figures issued by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), 13 person died of the virus in the past 24 hours, taking Pakistan's COVID death toll to 28,992.   

As many as 1,260,045 patients have recovered from the disease