Three die, 105 more test positive

Islamabad : Coronavirus illness, COVID-19 has claimed three more lives in Rawalpindi district in last 24 hours while another 105 patients have been confirmed positive from Rawalpindi and Islamabad Capital Territory making situation alarming to an extent that District Health Officer ICT recommended on Saturday to seal at least 10 streets and a road in the federal capital as per criteria of smart lockdown.

It is important that in last four days, as many as 449 new patients have been tested positive from twin cities including 365 confirmed cases from ICT and 84 from the district. The virus claimed four lives each from ICT and Rawalpindi in last four days.

DHO ICT Islamabad Dr. Muhammad Zaeem Zia has written a letter to Deputy Commissioner Islamabad (ICT Administration) on Saturday recommending implementation of smart lockdown in street number 38, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 and Sawan Road adjacent to street 48 in Sector G-10/4 along with street number 25 and 29 in Sector I-8/2.

The letter states that street number 85 and 89 of sector G-9/4 have the same trend of increasing COVID-19 cases. The teams of District Health Office are continuously conducting sampling from these areas to quarantine people in order to avoid further transmission of COVID-19 in the community. Thus it is recommended to seal these streets as per criteria of smart lockdown, states the letter.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Saturday reveals that over 100 confirmed patients of the illness were reported from the region in a day after at least 82 days, on Wednesday while in last four days, the number of patients confirmed positive from the twin cities per day crossed the figure of 100 three times.

It is worth mentioning here that from August 1 to September 9 (in 40 days), a total of 965 new patients were confirmed positive for COVID-19 from the region at an average of 24 patients per day while from September 10 to October 1 (in 22 days), as many as 1064 new patients were reported making an average of over 48 patients per day.

From October 2 to October 6, as many as 299 new patients were tested positive for the illness from the twin cities at an average of around 60 patients per day. In last four days, however, the average number of patients tested positive per day has crossed the figure of 112 hinting that the second spike of the outbreak has set in.

In last 24 hours, 88 new patients were tested positive for the disease from ICT taking tally to 17210 of which 16279 have recovered while 188 have died of the disease. The number of active cases of COVID-19 in the federal capital reached 743 on Saturday.

Meanwhile, another 17 patients have been tested positive for COVID-19 from Rawalpindi in last 24 hours taking tally to 6,472 of which 6,008 have already recovered while 295 have lost their lives. The number of hospitalised patients was 13 on Saturday while number of confirmed patients in home isolation was 156 in the district, said Executive District Officer (Health) Rawalpindi Dr. Sohail Ahmed Chaudhary while talking to ‘The News’.