Highest Positivity Ratio Reported In Karachi Amidst Surge In Coronavirus Cases

On Thursday, Asad Umar, a federal minister and head of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), warned that coronavirus patients are rapidly increasing in hospitals. He urged the people of Pakistan to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and get vaccinated at the earliest. 

The country went on to record around 2,545 cases in the last 24 hours, during which no less than 47 people lost their lives to the deadly disease. 

Umar took to the microblogging website, Twitter, to reveal that hospitals are readily being filled up with infected patients. He added that the number of people receiving critical care has also significantly risen. 

The minister informed that the Indian variant has led to much devastation in various countries across the region. As per WHO, this strain will soon become the most dominant one in the world up until now. The NCOC chief also advised the people to follow all the guidelines laid out by the relevant authorities and appealed to them to not risk their lives or the lives of others. 

Dr. Faisal Sultan, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on matters of health, asserted that the positivity ratio of the disease has now reached a total of 19% in the City of Lights. It went up from 15%, which was recorded just two days ago. 

The SAPM announced that the rates of infection are readily rising, and the national positivity ratio has now moved beyond 5.2%. In his words, Karachi has registered the highest positivity ratio, followed by Peshawar, which stands at 9.4%. The rate reported by the federal capital was 6.2%, whereas Lahore updated that its positivity ratio is 3.8%. 

Dr. Sultan urged the people of the country to strictly wear masks and avoid crowded places and events. He also informed that over 580,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered just yesterday. 

On the 9th of July, Umar stated that there were clear and emerging signs that the country was entering into the fourth wave of the deadly disease. He blamed the rise in infections on poor SOPs compliance, as well as the spread of the Indian variant. 

The head of NCOC recalled that just two weeks ago, he had posted that artificial intelligence models in Pakistan had indicated towards a possible fourth wave. But now the models are showing clear signs that the wave has already begun. 

He had stressed the importance of complying with SOPs back then, using the evidence from the AI-based disease modeling analysis of a rise in infections in the upcoming days.