36 die as K-P’s Covid toll hits 3,310

Another 36 people succumbed to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province, bringing the total number of people killed so far to 3,310. According to a report of Health Department, Peshawar remained on top of the Covid fatality chart with 17 people falling prey to the contagion, followed by Mardan which recorded six deaths.

Likewise, Swat reported two deaths, Abbotabad two, Swabi one, Hangu one, Kohat two, Bannu four and Malakand one. In the past 24 hours, 796 people recovered from the infection successfully across the province, bringing the total number of recovered people to 102,938. The number of active cases stands at 12,165 in the province. The Health Department conducted tests of 8,102 people during this time. On the other hand, Intensive Care Units (ICU) in the province are under tremendous pressure as the number of serious patients has been increasing with each passing day.

According to the report of Health Department there are a total of 295 ICU beds reserved for Covid-19 patients in the province of which 176 are already occupied. Same is the situation at High Dependency Units (HDU) as there are 1,411 beds at HDUs in the provincial hospitals out of which 1,044 beds are already occupied. “Only the low flow oxygen beds are not occupied across the province as we have a capacity of 1577 beds and out of it 635 are occupied so this is the only area where we still have some space,” said an official while talking to The Express Tribune.

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“90 patients are in critical condition and have been put on ventilators but still 254 ventilators are unoccupied,” he said, adding that the number of active cases has also been on the rise constantly. “There are 12,141 active cases of Covid-19 across K-P. Still there are a lot many people who have the infection but due to lack of symptoms they remain unidentified.

“The positivity ratio of the infection has been 12 to 16 percent in the K-P. In the past two weeks Mardan was on the top with 30 percent positive cases. It was closely followed by Dir Lower with 25 per cent positive cases, Peshawar 24 per cent and Malakand and Dir Upper with 17 per cent ratio,” he said, adding that Peshawar district was on the top in terms of Covid deaths across the province due to its higher population density.