COVID-19 infections rise nearly 500pc in Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Health officials in Pakistan said Wednesday two more lawmakers have died after contracting the coronavirus, as the national tally of infections has risen by nearly 500% over the past month, foreign media reported.

The pandemic hit the country of 220 million people in late February and has since killed about 1,700 Pakistanis, including five members of national and provincial parliaments.Officials have confirmed several other lawmakers and ministers also are among more than 80,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections

The government data for April 30 had put the number of deaths and patients at just over 300 and 16,400, respectively.Pakistan recorded 67 deaths and 4,131 new patients in the past 24 hours, the second highest single-day increase in infections after Russia, where more than 8,500 patients tested positive for the virus.

Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab is said to be the worst-hit by COVID-19 infections.An official sample survey has concluded that about 700,000 people might have been infected in the provincial capital, Lahore, the country’s second largest city.

The findings suggested “no workplace, market and residential area … is disease-free” in the city of about 12 million people.Provincial Health Minister Yasmin Rashid told reporters the research was done by a team of local and international experts with the goal of helping the government assess how the disease is going to grow in coming weeks.

“The samples collected had an infectivity rate of about 5.8%. These are extrapolated figures that we use to combat a disease, but they have helped us enhance our measures [against COVID-19],” Rashid said.

Easing restrictions

Despite Pakistan witnessing a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, Prime Minister Imran Khan has rejected calls for enforcing a complete lockdown to stem the spread of the disease. He has warned that such a move would endanger the lives of millions of poverty-stricken families, mostly those of daily wagers and laborers. Their livelihood means have already been disrupted by initial lockdown restrictions, he insisted.