Punjab health dept warns of second coronavirus wave

Officials say danger looms due to laxness shown by masses in adopting SOPs at public places

LAHORE:

Punjab health department has warned of a second wave of coronavirus in the province due to lack of precautionary measures adopted by the masses.

The warning was issued by the Primary and Secondary Healthcare department to the divisional commissioners and regional police officers (RPOs) on Saturday.

It said that lack of seriousness of the masses has raised chances of another wave of the infection as it has been witnessed that no standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been followed at business centres, shopping malls and other public places across the province.

It expressed regret over the lack of implementation on the SOPs and directed the concerned officials to ensure a complete implementation upon it.

The country has witnessed a sharp decline in the coronavirus cases after the month of June this year, resulting in ease in restrictions on movement by the government nationwide.

According to the latest figures provided by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), nine more people died due to coronavirus-related complications in past 24 hours, pushing the death toll from the disease in the country to 6,162.

The number of active coronavirus cases has dropped to 16,261 as 265,624 patients have recuperated.

As many as 23,722 more samples were tested over the previous 24 hours, taking the total number of tests conducted across the country thus far to more than 2.2 million.

Thus far, 125,632 cases have been detected in Sindh, 95,203 in Punjab, 35,091 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 12,144 in Balochistan, 15,346 in Islamabad, 2,179 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 2,452 in Gilgit-Baltistan.