Number of Covid-19 patients on continuous rise: Three deaths, 258 cases in twin cities

RAWALPINDI: Number of patients being diagnosed with coronavirus illness, COVID-19 from Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi district has been registering a continuous increase as in the last one week, over 1,400 patients have been tested positive for the infection from the region making the situation more and more alarming.

It is important that almost all educational institutions in the region would resume functioning at the beginning of August and according to many health experts, the virus may spread much faster after reopening of schools, colleges, and universities in the twin cities.

In the last two weeks of June this year when the educational institutions were operating, a total of 637 patients were reported from the twin cities making an average of 45 patients per day that has now jumped to over 200 per day.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Sunday reveals that the virus claimed another three lives from the region taking the death toll to 1,807 while as many as 258 new patients were tested positive for the infection in the last 24 hours taking the tally to 111,675.

According to District Health Officer ICT Dr. Muhammad Zaeem Zia, the positivity rate of COVID-19 in the federal capital is being recorded as around eight per cent though the number of patients being reported per day is still less than that of the number registered during the most intense phase of the third wave of the outbreak.

He said it is time for individuals to follow standard operating procedures religiously and get vaccinated to slow down the spread of the virus. It is important that the average positivity rate of COVID-19 in the Rawalpindi district has turned out to be over eight per cent in the last five days while in the last 24 hours, the positivity ratio from the district has been recorded as 7.27 per cent.

To date, a total of 1,015 patients have died of COVID-19 from Rawalpindi district while the virus has so far claimed as many as 792 lives from the federal capital. In the last 24 hours, as many as 168 patients were tested positive for COVID-19 from ICT taking the tally to 85,519 of which 82,479 patients belonging to the federal capital have achieved a cure. The number of active cases from ICT jumped to 2,248 on Sunday after an addition of 20 active cases to the existing pool in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, confirmation of 90 new cases from Rawalpindi district took the tally to 26,156. To date, a total of 24,447 patients from the district had recovered from the illness while the number of active cases of the infection belonging to Rawalpindi was recorded as 694 on Sunday of which 64 patients were hospitalized in the district and 630 patients were in home isolation.