Covid-19 positivity shoots up to 7.17%

Door-to-door vaccination drive begins from tomorrow

RAWALPINDI:

The test-to-positivity ratio in Rawalpindi district has once again climbed to 7.17 percent owing to people’s total disregard for following coronavirus precautionary guidelines during Eidul Azha holidays.

The health officials said the number of infected patients in hospitals and in home isolation is increasing rapidly. They added 57 people contracted the virus during the past 24 hours while five people succumbed to the deadly virus, taking the death toll in Rawalpindi to 1,014. They said 114 infected patients are receiving treatment in the hospitals.

The virus has infected 26,066 people in the district of whom 24,370 have successfully recovered from Covid.

Sources told The Express Tribune that implementation of SOPs and adherence to other protocols is necessary to stop coronavirus from spreading. They said to date 1.43 million people have been immunised in Rawalpindi. However, this is a little over 20 percent of residents who have been vaccinated in a population of six million.

Vaccination campaign

The Punjab government has decided to launch a door-to-door corona vaccination campaign from Monday (tomorrow) in five cities, including Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and Lahore to meet the targets set by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC).

The decision was taken in a meeting jointly chaired on Saturday by Provincial Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid and the Punjab chief secretary at the Civil Secretariat.

Read Covid jab mandatory for air travel

The minister told the meeting the NCOC had set a target of vaccinating 40 per cent of the population over 18 years of age in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan and 70 per cent of Rawalpindi population by August 14.

She said the number of vaccination centres in Lahore were being increased. She said that vaccination and compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) was the only solution to stop coronavirus.

Punjab Chief Secretary Jawad Rafique Malik directed the administration and the police to extend full cooperation to Health Department teams during the campaign. He also issued instructions for setting up vaccination camps near all teaching hospitals.

Primary and Secondary Healthcare Secretary Sarah Aslam told the meeting that the department had prepared a micro-plan for the vaccination campaign and two mobile teams would work in each union council for door-to-door vaccination.

She said 566 teams in Faisalabad, 224 in Gujranwala, 250 in Multan, 356 in Rawalpindi and 528 teams in Lahore would be formed to administer vaccine at doorsteps.

The NCOC had said earlier that the Delta variant was more dangerous than the Indian mutation of the novel coronavirus.

“Cases of Delta variant are surfacing in the country which could possibly trigger the fourth wave,” the NCOC said in its daily update. It called upon the people to follow security protocols against the virus because “any laxity could have serious consequences”.

The country's death toll climbed to 22,971 after 32 more people succumbed to the deadly disease.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2021.