Covid-19 positive cases surge past 30 per cent in Karachi

Alarm bells started ringing in Islamabad over the Covid-19 situation in Karachi where positive cases surged to 30.58 per cent as 1,704 people tested positive when 5,571 tests were conducted at 24 testing facilities in the city over the past 24 hours, Sindh health department officials said on Tuesday.

“The positivity of cases is continuously rising in Karachi, and we are still far from peak of this wave. With an alarmingly high number of Covid-19 cases, hospitalisation has reached record numbers and now most of the tertiary-care health facilities are unable to cope up with the pressure of patients,” an official of the health department told The News.

Officials at the NCOC were highly perturbed over the increasing positive cases in Karachi and urged the provincial health authorities to ramp up vaccination as millions of vaccine doses of six different vaccines were available in Pakistan. They asked the provincial administration to go for wider lockdowns in areas where the bulk of the cases were being reported.

A health department official said three oxygen tanks had been installed at the Sindh Services Hospital, Sindh Government Hospital Liaquatabad and Sindh Government Hospital Korangi, while two more oxygen tanks would be installed at the Sindh Government Qatar Hospital and Sindh Government Hospital New Karachi to make room for hundreds of patients being brought to treatment facilities.

“Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has also urged the private hospitals’ owners to show compassion and help the government in treating patients as many patients are not visiting the private health facilities due to their exorbitant charges. But it is highly unlikely that private hospitals would respond to the Sindh government’s appeal,” the official added.

Over the past 24 hours, Covid-19 claimed 20 more lives in Sindh, mostly in Karachi, taking the death toll to 5,860 in the province, while 2,517 new cases emerged when 18,737 tests were conducted, Chief Minister Shah said in his daily report. He added that with 5,860 deaths, the Covid-19 mortality rate stood at 1.6 per cent.

Shah said 18,737 samples were tested, which detected 2,517 cases, constituting 13.4 per cent current detection rate. So far 4,927,434 tests have been conducted against which 371,745 people have tested positive. Of them 88.8 percent of 330,166 patients have recovered, including 6,590 overnight.

Currently 35,719 patients are said to be under treatment. Of them 34,405 were in home isolation, 45 at isolation centres and 1,269 at hospitals. The condition of 1,137 patients was stated to be critical, including 96 shifted onto ventilators.

Of the 2,517 new cases, 1,989 have been reported from Karachi. According to the report, District East reported 645 cases, District South 372, District Central 357, District Korangi 346, District Malir 200, and District West 69 cases.

Hyderabad reported

93 cases, Sanghar 59, Mirpurkhas 45, Jamshoro 42, Badin 38, Tharparkar 34, Tando Muhammad Khan 31, Matiari 27, Umerkot 24, Dadu 22, Sujawal 13, NausheroFeroze eight, Ghotki seven, Kashmore six, Khairpur four, Shaheed Benazirabad three, Thatta two, Jacobabad, Shikarur and Sukkur one each.

Positivity rate at ASH

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) Abbasi Shaheed Hospital's Pathological Laboratory on Tuesday conducted 57 PCR Covid-19 test out of which 24 tested positive while 33 turned negative. The ratio for positive cases remained 42 per cent.

Karachi Administrator Laeeq Ahmed once again appealed to the citizens to exercise utmost caution in view of the increasing number of coronavirus cases in the city.