Covid-19 positivity rate in Karachi jumps to 33.6 percent

KARACHI: The Covid-19 positivity ratio climbed to 33.66 percent in Karachi as 2,816 people tested positive for the infectious disease on Friday against 8,366 tests conducted at 17 public and private laboratories, officials said, adding despite rapid increase in the cases, only one person died in the city.

Sharing a report on the Covid-19 situation, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said 23 of 24 samples were found to be of the Omicron variant in Karachi, when they were analysed through Next Genome Sequencing and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) Karachi respectively.

He maintained so far 430 cases of Omicron variant have been detected in Karachi, adding that 3,089 new cases of Covid-19 were detected when 15,719 tests were conducted, while one more patient died lifting the death toll to 7,693.

Giving details of the pandemic situation, he said fortunately, no death due to the Covid-19 was reported overnight, while the death toll remained aT 7,693 that constituted 1.6 percent death rate. He said that so far 7,323,358 tests have been conducted, against which 495,663 cases were diagnosed, of them 95.2 percent or 471,845 patients have recovered, including 2,339 overnight.

The CM said that currently, 16,125 patients were under treatment, of them 15,875 were in home isolation, 22 at isolation centres and 228 at different hospitals, adding that the condition of 209 patients was stated to be critical, including 13 shifted to ventilators.

According to him, out of 3,089 new cases, 2,816 have been detected from Karachi, including 1,037 from district East, 934 South, 423 Central, 193 Korangi, 117 West and 112 from Korangi. Hyderabad has 104, Shaheed Benazirabad 25, Sujawal 22, Naushahroferoze 19, Matiari 15, Mirpurkhas 14, Tando Allahyar 11, Tharparkar eight, Badin and Sanghar seven each, Larkana six, Umerkot five, Dadu and Ghotki four each, Sukkur three, Kashmore and Tando Muhammad Khan two each, Jacobabad and Jamshoro one each.

The CM, sharing the vaccination data, said that 31,311,554 vaccine doses have been administered till January 13, adding that during the last 24 hours, 203,420 people were inoculated - in total 31,514,974 vaccine doses have administered, which constituted 56.99 percent of the vaccine eligible population. He urged the people to follow the standard operating procedures.