Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar Tuesday said that the decisions of the government to cope with second wave of Covid-19 yielded positive results as number new cases, hospitalized patients, those on ventilators and deaths had started coming down after witnessing peak in December 2020.
Addressing media after chairing a meeting of National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) for coronavirus, the minister said the trend has started easing and now it is on the downward trajectory. He, however, warned that the second wave has proved to be more deadly and in the Western countries and the US, the number of deaths was more than that in the first wave so “we should be highly careful at this last stage of the pandemic”. He said the decisions of the government and the results were highly correlated that is why the people should observe all the precautionary measures suggested by the NCOC and the health authorities.
The minister said that the Covid-19 vaccine from China would come to Pakistan soon and first it would be used for the frontline health workers such as medical staff and then for common people.
Meanwhile, the tally of total active Covid-19 cases in Pakistan on Tuesday reached 34,007 as 2,408 more people tested positive for the deadly virus and 3,606 people recovered from it. Forty-one corona patients lost their lives out of which 36 were under treatment in hospitals and five three others in their respective homes or quarantines, according to the latest update issued by the NCOC. Most of the deaths occurred in Punjab, followed by Sindh. Out of the total 41 deaths, 27 patients died on ventilators.
No Covid-19 affected person is on ventilator in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Balochistan while 320 ventilators were occupied elsewhere in Pakistan. The maximum ventilators were occupied in four major areas including Multan 58 percent, ICT 36 percent, Bahawalpur 50 percent and Peshawar 32 percent. The maximum oxygen beds were also occupied in four major areas of Peshawar 51 percent, Multan 32 percent, Karachi 37 percent and Rawalpindi 30 percent.
Some 40,088 tests were conducted across the country on Monday, including 14,137 in Sindh, 14,499 in Punjab, 5,001 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 5,277 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 574 in Balochistan, 367 in GB, and 233 in AJK.
Around 461,977 people have recovered from the disease so far across Pakistan making it a significant count with over 86 percent recovery ratio of the affected patients. Since the pandemic outbreak, a total of 506,701 cases were detected that also included the perished, recovered and under treatment COVID-19 patients so far, including AJK 8,501, Balochistan 18,429, GB 4,882, ICT 39,340, KP 61,648, Punjab 146,016 and Sindh 227,885.
About 10,717 deaths were recorded in country since the eruption of the contagion. Around 3,708 perished in Sindh among nine of them died, six of them died in hospital and Three out of the hospital. 4,299 in Punjab had died with 27 deaths in past 24 hours, 25 of them perished in the hospital and two out of the hospital on Monday. 1,743 in KP where three of them died in hospital on Tuesday, 443 in ICT where two of them died in the hospital on Tuesday, 188 in Balochistan, 101 in GB and 235 in AJK succumbed to the deadly virus.
A total of 7,162,626 corona tests have been conducted so far, while 630 hospitals are equipped with Covid facilities. Some 2,843 corona patients were admitted in hospitals across the country.
