Authorities to ramp up random sampling

National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) has said that it will ramp up random sampling next week for COVID-19 to monitor the community spread of cases due to the lockdown easements.

Due to a reduced number of cases, NEOC and authorities in the country have recently announced several easements to the lockdown on the capital.

Speaking in a presser tonight, NEOC medical officer Dr. Ibrahim Afzal said “Sample collection from the most vulnerable five groups for the virus is to be collected.”

Testing will be focused on:

• Front line staff
• Prison or detention center staff
• Elderly individuals above 65
• Residents of congested living quarters
• Those aged between 20 and 39

Samples will be collected on a clustered sampling basis or by distributing the individuals into separate clusters.

“We will need a lot of cooperation from you (public). We can transition from one phase of the easements to another after we receive the test results from this.” Said Dr. Afzal.