KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the detection rate of Coronavirus was lower in Sindh than the other provinces during the last one month but now it has started hitting new highs because the inter-provincial transport was allowed to operate.
“Now, we may have to take strict actions, including imposing lockdown to save our people.” This he said while participating, through video link, in the National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan at PM House Islamabad.
Those who attended the meeting include Dr Azra Pechuho, Saeed Ghani, Nasir Shah, Parliamentary Secretary Qasim Siraj Soomro, IG Sindh Mushtaq Maher, ACS Home Usman Chachar, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Dr Abdul Bari, Dr Faisal, Commissioner Karachi Naveed Shaikh, Secretary School Education Ahmed Bux Narejo, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi, Secretary Health Kazim Jatoi, representatives of Corps 5, Rangers, WHO, UNICEF and other organisations.
The chief minister said that the Covid-19 detection ratio in Karachi was at four percent and Hyderabad was at 5 percent but during the last one month it has increased to 16.64 percent in Hyderabad, 8.93 percent in Karachi and 5.64 percent in rest of the province. “This is a very serious situation, and we would have to take strong decisions, otherwise the situation would go out of control,” he said.
Shah said that had the government decided to impose a ban on inter-provincial and inter-city transport as was suggested by him on March 31, the situation would have been under control in Sindh. He added that it was time to take some strong decisions to ban inter-city transport, strict vigilance at airports, imposing lockdown in the districts where cases were on the rise, declare vaccination mandatory for doctors, policemen and strict administration and allow the provinces, particularly Sindh to procure vaccines directly.
The prime minister allowed the Sindh government to purchase vaccines. Earlier, the chief minister chaired the Coronavirus Taskforce in which the recommendations for the NCC meeting were firmed up. The meeting had decided to procure corona vaccine in bulk and store it at Dow University, Ojha Campus.
Situation report: Sharing Covid-19 situation report the chief minister said with heavy heart that 11 more patients of Covid-19 died overnight lifting the death toll to 4587 that constituted 1.7 percent death rate. Shah said that 12,786 tests were conducted overnight which detected 855 cases that constituted 6.6 percent detection rate.
He added that so far 3,537,283 tests have been conducted against which eight percent or 276,669 cases were detected. The CM said that 329 more patients recovered overnight. He added that so far 261,871 patients have recovered that constituted 94.6 percent recovery rate.
Murad said that currently 10,211 patients were under treatment, of them 9,716 were in home isolation, nine at isolation centres and 486 at different hospitals. He added that the condition of 446 patients was stated to be critical, of them 48 have been shifted to ventilators.
According to the chief minister out of 855 new cases, 410 have been detected from Karachi: 210 from East, 76 Central, 68 South, 21 Malir, 18 Korangi and 17 from District West. Hyderabad has 94 cases, Matiari 31, Ghotki 28, Sukkur 26, Khairpur and Shikarpur 16 each, Naushehroferoze and Umerkot 15 each, Dadu 12, Shaheed benazirabad 11, Sanghar 10, Larkana nine, Kambar and Sujawal eight each, Tando Mohammad Khan seven, Badin six, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar five each, Jacobabad three, Jamshoro, and Kashmore two each.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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