Coronavirus claims eight more lives as another 363 test positive in Sindh

At least eight more persons lost their lives in the province due to COVID-19 while 363 more tested positive for the viral disease, including 231 in Karachi, during 24 hours, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said in his video message on Sunday.

“Although eight more people have lost their lives in the province due to COVID-19, 214 patients have fully recovered and tested for COVID-19 during the last 24 hours. On the other hand, the number of coronavirus cases and its community transmission is on the rise and cause of concern for the government and healthcare providers,” the CM said.

Shah said the number of new positive cases that emerged between Saturday and Sunday in Sindh was 363. He said it was encouraging that the number of recovered patients was on the rise but the local spread of the disease was still happening.

He said the new 363 positive cases had emerged after 3,032 tests, which was 11.9 per cent of the tests. The health department had tested 64,052 samples so far and detected 7,465 positive cases which constituted 11.7 percent of the total tests, he said.

Shah said eight more patients had succumbed to the virus taking the death toll to 130 which was 1.7 per cent of the total patients. “This shows that our recovery ratio is comparatively better,” he said.

The CM added that currently 5,780 patients were under treatment, including 4,638 in home isolation, 615 at isolation centres and 527 at different hospitals. A total of 76 patients were in a critical state and 17 of them were on ventilators.

Sharing the data of Karachi, Shah said out of 363 new cases, 231 belonged to the city. He added that 67 cases of them were from District East, 55 from District South, 45 from District Central, 28 from District West, 21 from District Korangi and 15 from District Malir.

In the rest of Sindh, he said Larkana and Ghotki had produced more cases of local transmission. He disclosed that Larkana had 30 new cases, Ghotki 21, Hyderabad 13, Shaheed Benazirabad 13, Khairpur 10, Jacobabad nine, Sukkur eight, Matiari two and Dadu had one new case.

“We have tried to contain it [COVID-19] but people do not care and violate SOPs and ignore social distancing,” he said and concluded that the epidemic could be defeated when every one of us would take the responsibility of securing themselves and their families.