17 succumb to COVID-19 as Sindh witnesses record new 1,017 cases

As many as 17 more people, including five women, lost their lives due to the novel coronavirus in the province between Tuesday and Wednesday, said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday, adding that of these, 12 patients died in Karachi while the remaining five people died in Hyderabad, Badin and Mirpurkhas.

Two of the 17 victims were not the permanent residents of Sindh.

“Today is another unfortunate day when such a large number of people have lost their lives due to coronavirus in the province. Around 17 died during the last 24 hours, five were women. Twelve of these patients died in Karachi alone,” Shah said.

He added that 1,017 cases of coronavirus had been detected during the last 24 hours, stating that as many as 6,164 tests were conducted in the province in that period. “This is the highest number of cases since February 26 when the first case of coronavirus was detected in Sindh.”

He said that of the 6,164 tests, the diagnosis of 1,017 meant that 16.5 per cent of the samples had tested positive. “The figure of four digits, 1,017, is the highest figure since February 26 when the first case was diagnosed.”

The CM maintained that so far a total of 137,540 tests had been conducted, against which 18,964 or 12.8 per cent had been diagnosed as positive.

Shah said 17 more coronavirus patients had died lifting the death toll to 316, which constituted 1.6 per cent of the total patients. He added that 127 patients were in a critical state and 32 of them had been put on ventilators.

At present, 13,003 patients were battling COVID-19, the CM said, adding that a majority of 11,516 of them, which constituted 88 per cent of the total, were in home isolation, 809 patients were admitted to isolation centres and 678 or 5.8 per cent were in hospitals.

The CM said 904 patients had been cured and discharged, after which the number of patients who had defeated the virus and returned to their homes reached 5,645, which was 30 per cent of the total patients.

Shah maintained that of the 1,017 new patients, 872 belonged to Karachi. “As usual, Karachi is on the top in the local transmission cases,” he said and added that Hyderabad had 27 new cases, Larkana 26, Khairpur 18, Sukkur 15, Ghotki 15, Badin, Kamber-Shahdadkot and Thatta seven each, Shaheed Benazirabad six, Sanghar four, Dadu three, and Sujawal and Jacobabad had two cases each.

The CM also urged the people of Sindh to be vigilant and careful regarding the virus, or else the virus could not be contained.