2 deaths, 224 new cases reported

Islamabad : Coronavirus illness, COVID-19 has claimed another two lives in last 24 hours here in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) taking death toll from the federal capital to 217 while as many as 224 new patients have been tested positive for the disease in a day from ICT showing the outbreak has entered in a much intense phase.

Over 200 confirmed cases of the illness in a day have been reported from the federal capital after June 29 when a number of localities in the region and as well in Pakistan were under strict smart lockdown and majority of the businesses, restaurants, marriage halls, public parks and educational institutions were not operating.

On the basis of diagnostic tests being done in both public and private sector laboratories in the federal capital, we have found that the positivity of the cases has been fluctuating between two and five per cent for a month or so while among contacts of the patients being traced, the positivity is ranging between 15 to 22 per cent, said District Health Officer ICT Dr. Muhammad Zaeem Zia while talking to ‘The News’ on Saturday.

He said ICT is witnessing an upward surge in number of cases of COVID-19 and there are two obvious reasons behind it, one the strong surveillance by the teams of health department and the other is that individuals are not following SOPs properly.

To a query, he said people should limit their activities and there should be no unnecessary movement to avoid further spread of the illness. The government has already issued protocol including closure of routine businesses by 10 p.m. daily to control the situation, he said.

However, on complete closure of businesses, restaurants, marriage halls and educational institutions, he said the federal government and National Command and Control Centre would decide on it. The outbreak is intense in ICT yet the situation is under control at the moment, said Dr. Zaeem.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Saturday reveals that a total of 364 new patients have been tested positive from the federal capital in last two days of which 224 have been reported in last 24 hours.

To date, a total of 19,818 patients have been confirmed positive from ICT of which 17,905 have recovered while on Saturday, there were 1,696 active cases of the disease in the federal capital.