COVID-19 death toll rises to 200 in Sindh with 11 more deaths

A total of 11 people lost their lives due to the novel coronavirus between Sunday and Monday in Sindh, raising the death toll due to the viral disease to 200 in the province, while another 537 people tested positive for COVID-19.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said this in a statement issued on Monday.

“Two females, including a baby girl of three years of age, as well as nine men have lost their lives at the hands of COVID-19 in Sindh during the last 24 hours. Of them, eight died in Karachi alone while three patients lost their lives in Hyderabad,” the CM said.

The CM said 537 new cases of COVID-19 had been detected in the province during the last 24 hours after 3,730 tests. He added that 14.4 per cent of the people had tested positive. The number of total coronavirus positive cases has reached 12,017 which is 12.6 per cent of the total 95,053 tests conducted so far.

Shah maintained that 11 more people had lost their lives lifting the death toll to 200, which constituted 1.6 per cent of the total patients. He added that at present 9,668 patients were under treatment.

“We have kept 8,178 meaning 84 per cent of the patients under treatment in home isolation where our doctors keep them advising,” he said and added that 911 patients were at the isolation centres and 597 at different hospitals.

The CM said 96 patients (16.6 per cent of the total patients) were in a critical state while 25 of them had been put on ventilators. He added that more 68 patients had recovered and discharged from hospitals. The number of patients recovered so far has reached to 2,149 or 18 per cent of the total detected cases.

Sharing the data of Karachi, Shah said out of total 537 new cases, 432 belonged to Karachi. They include 142 from District Malir, 62 from District Central, 61 from District East, 58 from District Korangi, 58 from District South and 51 from District West.

The CM said that as cases were rising in the city, he had decided to establish a COVID-19 hospital in Gulshan-e-Iqbal for which he had released Rs1.8 billion. “It will be a 400-bed hospital with a 100-bed ventilator facility,” he said.

Talking about the Pakistanis coming from abroad through flights, he said so far 2,951 passengers had landed in Sindh, of whom 545 had tested positive. “The positive cases are under treatment and being taken care of properly,” he added.

Regarding other districts, Shah said 22 new cases were detected in Sukkur, 19 in Shikarpur, 11 in Kamber-Shahdadkot, eight in Tando Allahyar, seven in Larkana, four each in Hyderabad, Matiari and Sanghar, three in Jacobabad, and one each in Badin, Jamshoro and Mirpurkhas districts.

The CM said markets in Sindh had been allowed to open under a standard operating procedure (SOP) but most of the shops and markets were seen crowded and people had thronged there with abiding by the SOP. He hoped that the people would understand the gravity of the situation and follow the SOP.