Karachi's Covid-19 positivity rate at 4.32% in last five days: CM Murad

Sindh govt seals 12 marriage halls, 29 shops and four schools for flouting coronavirus SOPs

KARACHI:

Amid fears of a second coronavirus wave in the country, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday said that Karachi's Covid-19 positivity rate had risen to 4.32 per cent during the past five days.

Speaking during the 17th meeting of National Coordination Committee on Covid-19 via video-link, he apprised the participants that the positivity rate of Hyderabad —Sindh's second-biggest city — was 3.24 per cent while it was 1.73 per cent for the rest of the province during the aforementioned period.

He said that Sindh was approaching the capacity to conduct 20,000 tests per day and had carried out 14,64,598 tests in the province in total whereas Punjab had carried out 13,76,263 tests despite being the largest province of the country.

The Sindh CM said that the provincial authorities have taken stern steps against the violators of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of Covid-19, adding that out of 341 marriage halls that were inspected, 12 were sealed, 97 were fined and 77 were issued warning.

Murad said that out of 1,045 inspected restaurants in the province, 577 were found violating the SOPs, adding that 329 were given warnings and 30 were fined.

He apprised the meeting that out of 75 educational institutes that were checked, 31 were violating the SOPs given by the government, saying that 27 were cautioned while four were sealed.

CM Sindh said that 173 shops were inspected by the provincial authorities, out of which 114 were not found flouting the SOPs. 60 were given warnings, 13 were fined while 29 were sealed.

2,549 patients, Murad said, have succumbed to Covid-19 in Sindh so far whereas 2,257 people died in Punjab, 146 in Balochistan, 1,263 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

He said that 2,742 cases have emerged from Karachi, 462 from Hyderabad, 108 from Larkana, 129 from Sukkur, 130 from Shaheed Benazirabad.

He further said that the province needed more testing kits to conduct more tests.

The statements come amid reports that the SOPs were not being followed by educational institutes and marriage halls amid coronavirus upsurge, particularly in Sindh, triggering fear of a second wave.

Pakistan has been largely able to successfully curb the contagious virus, which has so far claimed over 1,080,000 lives across the world.

However, Pakistan's Covid-19 tally was far lower as compared to neighbouring India where thousands of cases are being diagnosed each day, narrowing its gape with the United States which tops the table.

Despite the success, Prime Minister Imran Khan, earlier in a tweet, cautioned the nation against a possible second wave of the pandemic in the coming winter, urging the people once again to wear protective face masks in public places.