LAHORE : As many as 17 COVID-19 patients died and 535 new infections were confirmed in Punjab during the last 24 hours, according to report issued by Primary and Secondary Healthcare (P&SH) Department on Saturday.
The toll of fatalities was raised to 4,387 in Punjab, while confirmed cases of coronavirus reached 148,488 in the province.
As per the spokesperson of Corona Monitoring Room at Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, as many as 14,390 tests have been conducted in the last 24 hours, which raised the total number of tests to 2,684,341 in the province.
After 4,387 fatalities and recovery of a total of 133,586 patients, including 817 recoveries in the last 24 hours, as many as 10,515 active cases still remain, who are either isolated at homes or under treatment at different quarantine centres and health facilities.
Another 4 COVID-19 deaths in twin cities: After a day without reporting any death due to coronavirus illness, COVID-19 on Friday, four deaths due to the illness have been registered from Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi district in the last 24 hours taking the death toll to 1,025 while the total number of patients so far tested positive from the region has crossed the figure of 52,000 on Saturday.
As many as 159 new patients have been confirmed positive from the twin cities in the last 24 hours taking tally from the region to 52,100. Of 159 patients, 139 have been reported from ICT and 20 from Rawalpindi.
There is a depression in the number of patients being tested positive from ICT as weekly positivity rate in ICT has been recorded as 2.49 per cent for the last one week that had once jumped to over eight per cent, said District Health Officer ICT Dr. Muhammad Zaeem Zia while talking to ‘The News’ on Saturday.
If the trend follows, we hope that the positivity rate would drop down to below two per cent, he said. He added that there is a need to do more particularly by individuals as by following SOPs religiously, we can minimize the losses caused by the disease to a significant level.
To a query, he said the district health department would monitor all public and private educational institutions on a regular basis after reopening as was being done previously to check the spread of coronavirus.
Data collected by ‘The News’ on Saturday reveals that the virus claimed one more life from ICT taking the death toll to 450 while the total number of patients so far tested positive from the federal capital reached 39,888. To date, a total of 37621 patients from ICT have recovered while the number of active cases of the disease in the federal capital has reduced to 1817 on Saturday.
Meanwhile, another three patients have lost their lives in Rawalpindi district due to the illness taking the death toll to 575. To date, a total of 12,212 patients have been tested positive from Rawalpindi district of which 11,284 patients have been discharged from healthcare facilities after treatment. According to the district health department Rawalpindi, a total of 41 confirmed patients were undergoing treatment at the healthcare facilities in town on Saturday while some 312 confirmed patients of COVID-19 were in home isolation in the district.