Pakistan’s daily virus cases shoot up to nearly 800

By News Desk

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: The Centre and Sindh once again had differing views towards a steep rise in coronavirus cases on Thursday, after 799 new infections in a 24-hour-period—the highest single-day tally since August 8.

Planning minister Asad Umar, who leads the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), said the nation’s positivity ratio remained stable at “below 2 per cent”, and that the country had carried out a record number of tests in a day—more than 42,000 — to accommodate for “sentinel testing” at educational institutions to “identify early trends, if any”.

Sindh’s health minister, Azra Pechuho, however, painted a direr picture in the province. She said the positivity ratio had doubled—from 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent—and cautioned against reopening primary schools. But her colleague, education minister Saeed Ghani said later in the day that the second phase of reopenings was on track for September 28.

Pakistan began reopening educational institutions in phases on September 15, and daily infections have steadily risen. On September 15 there were 545 infections. Also, many schools were closed across the country for flouting government guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus. Speaking to Geo News, the Sindh health minister said the rate of positive coronavirus cases in the province had recently doubled and said reopening schools for younger children in the current situation would be “unwise”.

“Do not rush to open primary schools. Primary schools must be given at least one to one-and-a-half months to reopen,” the minister suggested. “It would be right to send children to school only when the situation is clearer,” she added. “A second wave of coronavirus has been predicted in the current situation,” Dr Pechuho warned.

Furthermore, a report issued by the Sindh Health and Population Welfare Department said at least 185 people associated with educational institutions across the province had contracted the coronavirus.

Some 35,339 people at educational institutions were tested, the health department noted, adding that the test reports of 25,000 individuals in universities, colleges, and high schools turned out negative. Most of the positive cases across Sindh’s 29 districts were from Karachi, it added.

Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said the provincial government “cannot reopen schools” until the implementation of precautionary measures was ensured since the standard operating procedures were not being followed.

“I want to make it clear to parents, teachers, and everyone else that, apart from the fact that people lost their loved ones, the closure of schools is the biggest setback of the virus. We are vigilantly observing the situation to reopen schools as soon as we can. However, a bigger loss than this would be the outbreak of virus in our schools,” Shah said.