COVID-19 spread well under control, weekly positivity drops again in ICT

Islamabad : The spread of coronavirus illness, COVID-19 is well under control in this region of the country including Islamabad Capital Territory from where the weekly positivity rate of the infection has once again dropped down to 0.66 per cent from the previous week’s rate of 0.88 per cent.

The number of cases and the positivity rate of COVID-19 registered an upward trend for the previous week, from November 29 to December 5 with 261 cases at a positivity rate of 0.88 per cent after which the health departments started expecting a further rise in the number of cases though the spread of the illness remained well under control during the last one week, from December 6 to 12, said District Health Officer ICT Dr. Muhammad Zaeem Zia while talking to ‘The News’ on Sunday.

He added that the positivity rate has dropped down to 0.66 per cent for the last one week while 5,000 more tests were conducted during the last seven days as compared to the number of tests done in the previous week.

To a query, he said there has not been reported any case of a recently reported variant of COVID-19, Omicron from this region of the country. It is important that as many as 230 new cases have been reported from ICT in the last week though the positivity rate was much lower.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Sunday reveals that in the last 24 hours, a total of 44 new patients have been tested positive for COVID-19 from ICT and Rawalpindi district taking tally from the region to 144,508 while the virus claimed one more life taking the death toll from the twin cities to 2,183.

According to details, as many as 36 new patients have been tested positive from ICT taking the tally to 108,117 of which 962 patients have lost their lives due to COVID-19. To date, a total of 106,786 patients from ICT have recovered. The number of active cases from the federal capital was 369 on Sunday.

On the other hand, the death of another patient took the death toll from Rawalpindi district to 1,221 while confirmation of eight patients positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours has taken tally to 36,391 of which 35,058 patients have recovered.

On Sunday, the number of active cases from the district was recorded as 112 of which 10 patients were undergoing treatment at the healthcare facilities in the district while 102 were in home isolation.