Covid-19 positivity ratio climbs to 15pc in Karachi

KARACHI: The COVID-19 positivity ratio is rapidly rising in Karachi where 780 more people were tested positive for the infectious disease, federal health authorities said, adding that Karachi’s positivity was now 15 percent against the national positivity rate of 3.16 percent.

“As many as 780 people were tested positive for COVID-19 in Karachi when5,168 people were tested in the city. It is mainly due to Omicron variant which has now replaced the Delta and other variants and infecting people at a rapid pace,” an official of the National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination told The News on Sunday.

But some private labs in Karachi claimed that positivity of cases was as high as 30 percent in the city due to Omicron variant of the Covid-19. “Our lab positivity is 30pc today,” Dr Faisal Mehmood, an Infectious Diseases associated with Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) said, adding that he has seen people getting infected even after the booster shot of Covid-19 vaccine.

“Even those who got two vaccines, then COVID, then two Pfizer shots, have been tested positive for Covid-19 again. It's a mild infection but still a transmission risk to the more vulnerable people,” Dr. Faisal Mehmood added.

On the other hand, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his daily Covid-19 situation report on Sunday, said fortunately no death was reported due to Covid-19, however, 928 new cases emerged when 14,012 tests were conducted in the province.

Murad Ali Shah said 14,012 samples were tested, which detected 928 cases that constituted 6.6 percent current detection rate and added that so far 7,256,330 tests have been conducted against which 486,350 cases were diagnosed, of them 96.4 percent or 468,826 patients have recovered, including 161 overnight.

The chief minister said that currently 9,843 patients were under treatment, of them 9,574 were in home isolation, 120 at isolation centers and 149 at different hospitals. He added that the condition of 142 patients was stated to be critical, including 11 shifted to ventilators.