Omicron variant replacing other variants: Covid-19 positivity reaches 15.52pc in Karachi

KARACHI: Despite closure of clinics and labs on Sunday, 759 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Karachi when 4,891 tests were conducted. On Monday, 799 people were tested positive for Covid-19, officials said, adding that positivity of the cases was 15.52percent in Karachi due to spread of Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

In his Covid-19 situation report on Monday, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said 39 more cases of Omicron variant emerged when 53 samples were tested through the Next Generation Genome Sequencing (NGS) and now 367 cases of Omicron variant had been found in the province.

He maintained that 940 new cases of Covid-19 emerged when 13,757 tests were conducted on Monday while one more patient died due to infectious disease, raising the death toll to 7,682. The chief minister said that during the last two days, 53 samples were tested through the Whole Genome Sequencing, which detected 39 new cases, lifting the number of Omicron variant cases detected in the province so far to 367.

Giving details of the Covid-19 situation, Murad Ali Shah said one more patient of coronavirus had died overnight, lifting the death toll to 7,682 that constituted 1.6 percent death rate. Some 940 new cases emerged when 13,757 tests were conducted that came to 6.8 percent current detection rate.

He said that so far 7,270,087 tests had been conducted against which 487,290 cases were diagnosed, of them 96.2 percent or 468,922 patients have recovered, including 96 overnight. The CM said that currently, 10,686 patients were under treatment, of them 10,410 were in home isolation, 120 at isolation centers and 156 at different hospitals. He added that the condition of 150 patients was stated to be critical,

According to him, out of 940 new cases, 799 have been detected from Karachi, including 350 from South, 275 East, 115 Central, 45 Korangi, 35 Malir and 24 West. Hyderabad has 27, Thatta 15, Jamshoro 11, Matiari and Shaheed Benazirabad 10 each, Larkana 8, Badin and Kamber 7 each, Sanghar 6, Umerkot 5, Jacobabad, Sujawal, Shikarpur and Nausheroferoze 4 each, Ghotki, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tharparkar, Sukkur and Mirpurkhas 3 each, Tando Allahyar 2 and Dadu 1.