COVID cases rising as Eid-ul-Azha nears

Health officials and experts raise questions over decreased testing

Picture source - Unicef.org

Two deaths resulted from COVID in Pakistan in the last 24 hours with the country registering 675 positive cases due to virus infections as health officials and experts have raised questions over decreased testing and solely focusing on the positivity ratio.

National Institute of Health (NIH) stated on Monday that the positivity ratio has been recorded at 4.61 percent during the last 24 hours compared with 3.88 percent on Sunday.

According to stats of NIH, two deaths were reported with 675 new cases whereas 153 patients remained on intensive care in the country. During the last 24 hours, a total of 14,632 tests were conducted countrywide.

Federal Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel on Monday said that the hospitalization of patients and the positivity ratio in the country had been a concern for the government. He told in a media briefing that on average, five patients were on intensive care whereas average deaths due to the virus were 1.5 percent.

Patel said that the majority of infections reported had been of the BA.5, a new sub-variant of Omicron. He assured that the National Command and Operational Centre (NCOC) was vigilant in monitoring and that National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) had also been engaged.

Raising concerns over lack of awareness among the public, he said that mass testing policy was devised for major cities showing increased virus spread like Karachi.

On the other hand, as per media reports, the government have placed the blame for a decline in testing on skewed figures, saying that people and health authorities had been taking the pandemic as normal.