Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said on Saturday that wearing masks in public places has been declared mandatory now as the coronavirus cases are mounting day by day.
The SAPM was addressing a press conference, where he said that surgical and cloth masks can be used while travelling in trains, public transport or going to mosques, bazaars, and shops. Mirza said that in the past 24 hours, 78 deaths occurred while four health workers also died of the virus.
“So far we have conducted 532,000 tests,” said the SAPM, continuing that in the past day 12,020 tests were done, out of which 2,429 came positive.
He added that the local transmission ratio of the virus has reached 92%, while the percentage of recovery cases is 36%.
The minister cautioned that there is a dire need to follow the SOPs and guidelines to curb the spread of the virus. He urged people not to spread wrong information on social media, particularly regarding hospitals.
“Our healthcare assets have not been engaged more than 25%,” he said.
He said that overall 66,457 people have been confirmed as coronavirus patients in Pakistan out of 532,000 people tested for it. “The death toll in the country has reached upto 1,395,” he said, adding that the virus is spreading in the country with most of it being attributed to its local transmission among the community members. “92 percent cases are of local transmission of virus,” he said. “Some 78 people including four health workers were the latest to become victim of coronavirus during past 24 hours,” he said, adding that safeguarding frontline workers is among their top priority.
While asking people to refrain from spreading propaganda regarding coronavirus, the special assistant on health affairs said that no one would be allowed to resort to violence at hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. “We have only utilized 25 percent of the heath resources of the country to deal with the pandemic,” Zafar Mirza said while rejecting any impression that rising cases has caused shortage of health resources. He further said that 36 percent of the virus-affected patients have recovered in the country and asked the masses to strictly adopt the preventive measures. “The government is going to make use of mask as mandatory,” he said while citing it a major tool to stop virus spread and asked the public to use it whenever they go outside.
Dr Zafar Mirza on Saturday asked the citizens to strictly follow social distancing and other precautionary measures to stop increasing local transmission of COVID-19 in the country. He also appealed citizens to follow all standard operating procedures (SOPs) during these days and avoiding hand shaking and leaving home without any reason. He said that there were complaints about violation of SOPs in markets by the citizens and shopkeepers. He asked the citizens to support the efforts of government in its fight against Covid-19 and effectively implementing its lockdown relaxation policy to continue business activities and normalizing the lives of citizens.
He said that this relaxation policy could be successfully implemented if citizens are fully cooperated with the government and implemented all SOPs otherwise there are chances of spread of disease. He said that still there are threats of spread of the disease and asked the citizens to continue implementing protective measures as per directions to stem the increase in coronavirus cases. He said that in order to create awareness in public about preventive measures, the government has tried its level best to publically share all SOPs. He said that SOPs have been prepared for all persons concerned keeping in view the prevailing disease situation and asked the citizens to read these SOPs. He said that so far 1,394 patients expired from corona disease. He added 36% patients have been recovered completely while over 532,000 corona tests have been conducted so far with 12,020 tests in last 24 hours.
