COVID-19 claims 12 lives in Sindh, raising death toll to 255

A total of 12 more people lost their lives in Sindh between Thursday and Friday due to the coronavirus infection, raising the death toll due to the viral disease to 255 in the province, said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in a statement issued on Friday.

He added that 817 new cases of coronavirus had also been diagnosed in the province.

“As many as 535 patients of coronavirus have recovered while 817 new cases of the infectious disease have been diagnosed in the province. On the other hand, 12 more patients have died in Sindh, mostly in Karachi, raising the death toll to 255 in the province. The situation seems to be critical in the sense that the rate of new patients and death ratio is on the rise with each passing day,” the CM remarked.

Analysing the situation of the coronavirus pandemic, Shah said for the first time, the recovery rate had jumped from 22 to 24 per cent as 533 patients were cured. Simultaneously, he said, the number of new patients due to local transmission, which was 758 on Thursday, had increased to 817 on Friday.

“The increase in the new cases depends on the number of tests — when the number of tests is increased, the number of new patients shows an upsurge,” he said and added that “this shows that the infected people exist and they keep infecting others, therefore the number of patients keep multiplying every day.”

Talking about deaths, Shah said 75 deaths due to the novel coronavirus had been reported from May 9 to May 14. “This shows that on average, more than 12 patients have lost their lives every day – this is not a good sign and needs to be controlled through self-protection and administrative measures,” he said.

Similarly, the CM added, by Friday morning 535 patients had recovered and discharged, against whom 817 new patients were admitted. “This shows that the pressure on our health system is on the rise. Even after the discharge of 535 patients, we have to arrange another 282 beds to accommodate 817 new patients,” he said.

The CM said the patients who had been kept in home isolation were being frequently looked after by doctors and in case of an emergency, they were shifted to hospital. “My strategy is to contain the virus by isolating the patients and stop its further spread by implementing social distancing and other SOPs,” he stated, adding that this would be possible when people would cooperate and understand the situation.

Sharing the details of the COVID-19 patients at present, he said 11,055 patients were battling coronavirus, of whom 9,651 or 87 per cent were in home isolation, 887 or eight per cent at the isolation centres and 517 at different hospitals. “The figures show that five per cent of the total patients are in hospitals, 21 percent of whom, which is 107, are in a critical state while 35 have been put on ventilators.”

Shah explained that of the 817 new cases, 567 belonged to Karachi, of which 139 were from District East, 125 from District Central, 115 from District South, 102 from District Malir, 52 from District West and 34 from District Korangi.

He said at present, there were 2,470 cases in District South, 2,324 in District East, 1,925 in District Central, 1,508 in District Malir, 982 in District Korangi, and 1,289 in District West.

Sharing the data of other districts, the CM said 57 new cases had been detected in Larkana, 23 in Sukkur, 22 in Khairpur, 19 in Kamber-Shahdadkot, 16 in Ghotki, 12 in Sanghar, 11 in Hyderabd, seven in Jacobabad, three each in Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and Shikarpur, and one in Tando Allahyar districts.

The CM said after the deaths of eight suspected COVID-19 patients in a Mohalla in Larkana, samples of their 122 contacts were collected, of whom 35 tested positive. “We are tracing more contacts [of the dead and the newly infected] so that they could be tested.”

He added that samples of 291 people from Pir-jo-Goth were collected, of whom 47 were diagnosed as COVID-19 patients.

The CM urged the people of Sindh to be responsive to the SOPs and other guidelines given by the experts and the World Health Organisation time to time, or else they would not be able to defeat the pandemic.