Alarm in Sindh over rising Covid-19 deaths

KARACHI: Mortality due to Covid-19 has started rising in Sindh, especially in Karachi where six more patients died due to complications of the infectious disease, officials said on Monday, adding that hospitalization of patients infected with novel coronavirus had started increasing gradually in the province.

“As many as six more patients infected with (novel) Coronavirus died overnight, lifting the death toll to 7,703 while 3,238 new cases emerged when 17,725 tests were conducted," Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said in his daily Covid-19 situation report on Monday.

The Covid-19 positivity remained over 30 percent in Karachi while case positivity of Hyderabad also increased to 10.68 percent on Sunday while on Monday, 2,446 cases of Covid-19 were reported from Karachi. Similarly, the highest number of Covid-19 cases were reported from Hyderabad outside Karachi where 186 cases were reported on Monday.

The chief minister maintained that during the last 24 hours, 17,725 samples were tested, which detected 3,238 cases that constituted 18.3 percent current detection rate. He added that so far 7,368,038 tests have been conducted against which 504,19 3 cases were diagnosed, of them 93.7 percent or 472,524 patients have recovered, including 399 overnight. The CM said that currently 23,963 patients were under treatment, of them 23,643 were in home isolation, 26 at isolation centers and 294 at different hospitals, adding that condition of 260 patients was stated to be critical, including 20 shifted to ventilators.

According to CM Shah, out of 3,238 new cases, 2,446 have been detected from Karachi, including 976 from East, 695 South, 521 Central, 242 Korangi, 219 Malir and West 93. Hyderabad has 186, Sukkur 53, Shikarpur 34, Ghotki 24, Jacobabad 22, Dadu 21, Jamshoro 20, Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad 14 each, Sanghar 12, NausheroFeroze and Thatta 11 each, Matiari and Badin 10 each, Larkana, Tando Muhammad Khan nine each, Kashmore eight, Tando Allahyar and Umerkot six each, Khairpur and Tharparkar two each.

About the vaccination data, Shah said that 31,924,593 vaccine doses have been administered upto January 15th, and added during the last 24 hours 164,790 persons were inoculated — in total 32,09,383 vaccine doses have been administered which constituted 57.98 percent of the vaccine eligible population. The chief minister urged people of the province to follow SOPs.