156 fresh COVID-19 cases reported in capital: NCOC

ISLAMABAD: National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) on Sunday said that 156 new cases of Coronavirus were reported from the federal capital during the last 24 hours.

According to an official of NCOC, as many as 146 cases were reported on Saturday while 221 cases were reported on Friday.

He said so far 80,312 cases were reported from the federal capital while 745 deaths were reported from Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). He added 71,939 patients had been recovered completely.

Commenting on the present Corona situation across the country, an official of the Ministry of National Health Services said that the government had taken appropriate measures and tightened restrictions to curb the COVID-19 disease as the virus was continuing to spread fast in the country.

He said the government was closely monitoring the third wave and it may lock down more areas if other interventions did not work in the next few days.

He said the prime minister had also engaged the armed forces to ensure that standard operating procedures (SOPs) were being followed in locked down areas which had a high positivity ratio.

He said the NCOC had access to data from all districts and reviewed it on a daily basis. Its decisions are based on the spread of the virus, the success of SOPs enforcement, and the capacity of the health care system, he added.

The official said, “Our engineers are actively working on making more plants functional for the production of oxygen. The diversion of non-essential industries was also being planned while avenues for import from other countries were also being explored.”

He said logistics for the transport, including the availability of trucks and drivers, were also being monitored while guidelines for using oxygen efficiently were being issued to ensure that there was no wastage.