The coronavirus situation in Karachi is gradually spinning out of control, with the city recording a 20.34% positivity rate in the latest stats shared by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, a private TV channel reported.
The Sindh CM’s stats showed that 1,314 people tested positive for the infectious disease on Friday, with 867 patients hospitalised at various health facilities, of whom 562 were on high flow oxygen and 177 on low flow oxygen. The city lost 25 more people to the virus, raising the death toll to 5,697 in the province. In the meantime, 931 patients are under treatment at different hospitals in Sindh. Of them, 857 patients are said to be in critical condition and 52 of them are on life support.
Sindh reported a total of 1,631 new coronavirus cases, including the 1,314 cases from Karachi. The CM said the fatality rate of the disease remained at 1.6% in Sindh. He said the diagnosis of 1,631 cases against 18,075 samples constituted a 9% current detection rate.
Of the 1,314 new cases detected in Karachi, 356 belonged to District East, 287 to District Central, 251 to District Korangi, 190 to District South, 122 to District Malir and 108 to District West.
In the rest of Sindh, Hyderabad had 52 new cases, Naushero Feroze 26, Dadu 22, Thatta 21, Tando Allahyar 16, Jamshoro 15, Shaheed Benazirabad and Badin 14 each, Mirpurkhas, Sujawal and Tharparkar 10 each, Umerkot eight, Matiari seven, Tando Muhammad Khan four, Kashmore and Sanghar two each, and Ghotki, Khairpur and Larkana had one new case each.
Pakistan reported 2,783 cases of coronavirus on Saturday, as per the statistics shared by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC). A total of 49,247 people were tested for the infection on Friday, said the NCOC, out of whom 2,783 turned out to be positive. This brings the positivity ratio across the country to 5.65%. A day earlier, the country reported a jump in its positivity rate for the virus, which went up to 6.17%. The last time Pakistan crossed the 6% positivity rate mark was almost two months ago in May.
Pakistan also reported 39 deaths from the infection over the last 24 hours. The total number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan since the pandemic began has risen to 986,668, while the number of active cases in the country has increased to 45,579.
As far as the recoveries are concerned, 918,329 people have recovered from the infection in total, while 22,759 have succumbed to the virus.
Pakistan received 1.24 million more doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine under the COVAX programme Saturday. A consignment containing 1.236 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine reached Islamabad onboard a foreign airliner, Ministry of Health spokesperson Sajid Shah confirmed. The first shipment of the British coronavirus AstraZeneca arrived in Pakistan on May 8, according to a Ministry of Health spokesperson. The first consignment of the vaccine included 1,248,400 doses of the vaccine. It was brought under the COVAX facility.
Pakistan was supposed to get the first tranche of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine via COVAX in March, but supply was delayed after the Serum Institute of India (SII) diverted supplies to meet its domestic needs, officials said.
