COVID-19 onslaught continues as 42 die, 5,830 more test positive

Total 400 cops deployed to guard vaccination teams

The national tally of total active COVID-19 cases in the country on Thursday was recorded at 100,072 with 5,830 more people testing positive for the deadly virus.

A total of 42 coronavirus patients died during the last 24 hours. According to the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), all the patients died in hospital, most of them in Punjab, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and none of them was on ventilator.

Maximum ventilators were occupied in four major cities of Islamabad (21 percent), Peshawar (13 percent), Gujranwala (8 percent) and Lahore (20 percent). Similarly, maximum oxygen beds were also occupied in Islamabad (27 percent), Bahawalpur (28 percent), Faisalabad (20 percent) and Lahore (26 percent).

Around 152 ventilators were occupied elsewhere in the country while no Covid patient was on ventilator in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Balochistan. Some 59,786 tests were conducted across the country on Wednesday, including 14,924 in Sindh, 21,249 in Punjab, 13,739 in KP, 6,945 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 627 in Balochistan, 337 in GB, and 1,965 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

Since the pandemic outbreak, a total of 1,442,263 Covid-19 cases have been detected across Pakistan so far, including 39,323 in AJK, 34,557 in Balochistan, 10,768 in GB, 129,758 in ICT, 197,937 in KP, 483,779 in Punjab and 546,141 in Sindh.

Around 1,312,819 of them have recovered from the disease, making it a significant count, with 29,372 deaths. Some 7,849 corona patients have perished in Sindh, out of which nine died on Wednesday, and 13,201 in Punjab, 16 of them during last 24 hours. Likewise, total deaths occurred in KP were 6,023, 14 of them on Wednesday, Islamabad 982, Balochistan 368, GB 189, one of them on Wednesday, and AJK 760, two of them during the past 24 hours.

A total of 25,194,561 corona tests have been conducted so far, while 640 hospitals are equipped with COVID facilities. Some 1,739 corona patients are still admitted in hospitals across the country. As many as 400 police personnel have been deployed here to provide security to 210 Covid-19 vaccination teams in the ongoing vaccination campaign.

According to Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) Rawalpindi Waseem Riaz, the Covid-19 door-to-door vaccination campaign launched to vaccinate the citizens against Covid-19 and police were ensuring their security. He said senior police officers had been deployed with the teams. To ensure the security of the teams, the police station staff was also patrolling in their areas, he added. He said all available resources are being utilized to ensure security of the vaccination teams.

Meanwhile, district administration Peshawar has arrested the managers of five restaurants for allowing dining in their facilities in violation of coronavirus preventive SOPs, said a press release issued on Thursday. On the directives of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Peshawar, Captain (r) Khalid Mahmood, the Additional Assistant Commissioner (AAC), Mohammad Azhar Khan conducted raids at various restaurants in the University Town last night.

Over violation of corona SOPs and ban on dining, managers of University Tikka Shop, Khyber Charsi Tikka Shop, Islamia Tikka Shop and Yasin Restaurant were arrested and legal proceedings have been started against them.

The weekly report of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System of Health Department released on Thursday stated that more than 80,000 coronavirus tests were conducted in the last week of January. The overall positivity in the province was 15%, the report said.