Second wave of COVID-19 declining due to govt's timely decisions: Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar Monday said that COVID-19 cases and mortality rate in the second wave had started declining due to the timely and result-oriented decisions of the government.

In a series of tweets, the minister said that "when the second wave accelerated we closed high risk areas identified by our analysis in last week of November".

He added in the first week of December, the admissions of COVID-19 patients was at peak in hospitals, whereas in second week of the month, the number of patients on oxygen and ventilators was high and in the third week mortality rate was high and then started declining.

He said decisions and results were highly correlated.

"Data clearly shows that corona health consequences are strongly correlated with our decisions and personal choices," he said. He however reiterated his advice to the people to keep on taking precautionary measures in order to avoid any further spread of the pandemic.

"If we do the right things we shall inshAllah continue to safeguard lives and livelihoods", he added.

Asad Umar said, "The devastation unfolding in countries like USA and UK these days where there were more cases and Covid deaths than at any time in the first wave, show the danger that could face us, if we do not continue to do the right things, with both the state and citizens playing their role".

The minister also shared a data regarding the trends of Covid cases.

According to the data, the number daily admissions of Covid patients in hospitals had declined from its peak of 269 patients on November 30 to 183 patients on January 11.

Similarly the number of deaths has also declined from 78 died on December 21, 2020 whereas on January 11, the number of deaths has declined to 32.

Likewise the number of critical hospitalized corona patients has also declined from 2,511 patients on December 07 to 2,286 patients on January 11.