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Thursday March 28, 2024

Covid-19 situation worsens across country

By Agencies
April 03, 2021

ISLAMABAD: The national tally on Friday of active COVID-19 cases reached 56,347, as 5,234 more people tested positive and 1,931 recovered in 24 hours.

Eighty-three patients died in 24 hours of whom 76 were under treatment in hospitals, according to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC). Most of the deaths occurred in Punjab followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Of 83 deaths, 26 died on ventilators.

The maximum ventilators were occupied in four major cities, including Multan (70%), Islamabad Capital Territory (50%), Gujranwala (60%) and Lahore (67%). The maximum oxygen beds (alternate oxygen providing facility other than ventilator administered as per medical requirement of COVID patients) were occupied in Swat (100%), Gujranwala (85%), Peshawar (87%) and Gujrat (73%).

Around 421 ventilators were occupied elsewhere in the country while no COVID-19 affected person was on ventilator in Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and Balochistan.

Around 50,170 tests were conducted across the country on Thursday, including 8,913 in Sindh, 23,039 in Punjab, 8,574 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 7,872 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 590 in Balochistan, 272 in GB, and 910 in AJK.

Around 607,205 people have recovered so far across Pakistan making it a significant count with over 90 percent recovery ratio.

Since the pandemic outbreak, a total of 678,165 cases have been detected that also include the perished, recovered and under treatment COVID-19 patients so far, including 12,984 in AJK, 19,610 in Balochistan, 5,045 in GB, 59,401 in ICT, 89,255 in KP, 225,953 in Punjab and 265,917 in Sindh. About 14,613 deaths have been recorded in the country since the eruption of the contagion.

A total of 10,297,544 coronavirus tests have been conducted so far. According to sources, 91,000 people were administered vaccine out of a total of 140,000 registered in the Punjab with 90 million people.

Meanwhile, the NCOC on Friday decided that senior citizens over 65 years of age can walk in to designated vaccination centres for administering doses through an on-the-spot registration facility.

The NCOC’s morning session was headed by its chairman, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, and was co-chaired by its coordinator, Lieutenant General Hamood Uz Zaman Khan.

The forum expressed concern over non-implementation of NCOC instructions on adherence to standard operating procedures (SOPs) on wearing of facemasks, social distancing and commercial timings.

It expressed satisfaction over the procurement process of COVID-19 vaccines and its subsequent rollout process to the federating units. It was informed that around one million Sinopharm vaccine doses purchased by the government have reached the country and distributed amongst all the federating units.

The forum also directed the provinces to ensure that vaccination targets set by the NCOC were vigorously pursued. It also took stock of the reported surge of COVID-19 positive cases among children.

It was found that there was no major deviation in positivity ratio in children as compared to previous waves’ statistics, the forum was briefed.

Meanwhile, the UK government on Friday said it would add four countries to its so-called red list banning incoming travel to England from next week, citing coronavirus "variants of concern".

The Department for Transport said the ban on visitors from Kenya, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Pakistan would enter force at 0300 GMT on April 9. This will include anyone who left the countries or transited through them in the previous 10 days. UK and Irish nationals and those with UK residence rights travelling from those countries will have to quarantine in hotels for 10 days.

The department said the ban was over new data showing increased risks of importing coronavirus "variants of concern". The new rules take the total number of red-listed countries to 39. The government said the list expansion came at a "critical time for the vaccine programme".

The UK has given more than 31 million people, or more than 45 per cent of the population, a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. The additional restrictions will "help reduce the risk of new variants such as those first identified in South Africa and Brazil entering England", the Department for Transport said.

The UK has set a potential May 17 date for resuming international travel, which is banned except for a few legally permitted reasons. A taskforce set up by Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to propose a traffic-light system to rank countries red, green or amber for travel according to the risks posed by their virus rates.

Meanwhile, the Sindh taskforce on coronavirus will approach the NCOC to ban inter-provincial transport for two weeks. A meeting, attended by senior provincial ministers at the Chief Minister’s House on Friday, was held with chief minister in the chair.

The meeting was told that from March 26 to April 1, 2021 positivity ratio of 4.63% had been recorded in Karachi, whereas it was found to be 5% in Hyderabad and 1.5 % in other areas of Sindh.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) representative informed the meeting that the UK strain of the coronavirus was growing at an alarming rate. "The provincial task force decided to approach the federal government to impose a ban on inter-provincial transport so that travelling of people to and from Sindh could be stopped to contain the virus," read a statement from the task force.

The chief minister clarified he was not in favour of a lockdown but instead wanted to ban inter-provincial transport so that people could not move from one province to the other. “This is the only way to contain the UK origin virus,” he said, adding that “the activity at the seaport and transport of goods would operate as usual”.