Umar Believes Politicians Are To Blame For Spread Of Coronavirus

Asad Umar, the Minister for Planning and Development, just recently made a speech stating that he believes politicians of the opposition are to blame for the spread of the coronavirus. In his opinion, it is their non-compliance with standard operating procedures (SOPs) that has spiked the fourth wave of the deadly disease. 

The minister took to the micro-blogging website, Twitter, to point out that just a couple of days ago, the Chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, had been threatening to hold Imran Khan, the Prime Minister, as well as his ministers, accountable if the contagion further spread in the City of Lights. 

He maintained that now the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) has made an announcement, stating that it will be staging a rally in this month in the city of Karachi. According to Umar, it is sad that politicians are the ones responsible for the maximum violations of coronavirus SOPs in the past one year. 

The federal minister, who also heads the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), revealed that he had recommended a delay in the elections of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) for at least a couple of months. He had further advised that a special vaccination campaign be run in the region before the polls take place. However, he informed that his proposals had been turned down. 

Ever since the elections, the Chief of NCOC revealed, the positivity rate in AJK has been fluctuating between 25% and 30%. According to him, the elections have led to a rise in the number of infections in the region. 

In another tweet, the minister announced that around 40 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered in the country so far. The last 10 million jabs had taken nine working days to be administered. Umar went on to encourage people to get vaccinated at the earliest to allow Pakistan to reach herd immunity and stay safe from the deadly disease. 

On the 3rd of August, reports were published revealing that the country had successfully managed to achieve a major milestone, which called for the vaccination of 1 million people in one day. Back then, Umar had made the good news public by tweeting on Twitter. 

The national tally clarified that the total number of active coronavirus cases in Pakistan has exceeded 86,000. This figure is the highest to be recorded during the current wave. 

It was further reported that a majority of the deaths took place in the province of Sindh, with Punjab following close behind. There are more than 4,500 patients in critical condition, who have been admitted to hospitals across the country due to the seriousness of their symptoms. 

As of now, the coronavirus positivity ratio has been recorded at above 8.3%. It is the percentage that signifies the actual number of positive cases that appear during every 100 tests performed, in order to figure out exactly which individuals have been infected.