AJK elections were a ‘super spreader’ event: Asad

Ag APP

ISLAMABAD: National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) chief Asad Umar said on Thursday that the elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) were a coronavirus “super spreader” event as he criticised politicians for being the “worst” violators of safety measures.

Umar, who is also the Planning minister, said he had recommended the postponement of elections in AJK for a couple of months and before the polls, a special vaccination campaign should take place, but it was not agreed by the authorities.

“Since the elections, the positivity of AJK is running between 25 and 30 per cent. Elections have acted as a super spreader event,” he added.

During last one year, the worst violation of the Covid standard operating procedures (SOPs) came from politicians, he said. “Two weeks back Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was threatening to hold Prime Minister and ministers accountable if Covid spreads further in Karachi and now Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) announces holding a ‘Jalsa’ this month in Karachi! Sadly the worst violations of Covid-19 SOPs in the last one year have come from politicians,” he tweeted. In another tweet, Umar said some 40 million vaccination doses had been administered so far. “The last 10 million took only nine working days to administer. Let’s vaccinate and make Pakistan safe from this disease,” he added.

His comments come as Pakistan registered 102 fatalities in a 24-hour-period, its largest increase in deaths since the fourth wave began. Most of the deaths occurred in Sindh followed by Punjab. The tally of active cases rose to 86,217 — also the largest number of active cases after 4,934 more people tested positive.

The country’s Covid positivity ratio was recorded 8.3 per cent, with the highest in Chitral at about 30 per cent, according to Geo News. Karachi’s was 18.21 per cent, while Hyderabad’s was 16.82 per cent.

There were 4,584 Covid patients under treatment in critical condition, 71 of whom were admitted in the past 24 hours in various Covid-dedicated healthcare facilities.

Around 450 ventilators were occupied in the country. The most ventilators were occupied in four major cities — Islamabad 47 per cent, Multan 42 per cent, Peshawar 36 per cent and Bahawalpur 40 per cent.

The most oxygen beds were occupied in Abbottabad 71 per cent, Karachi 59 per cent, Diamer 50 per cent and Swat 44 per cent. Since the pandemic began, a total of 1,085,294 cases were detected and 24,187 were dead.