Umar blames politicians for Covid spread

102 patients died in country in the past 24 hours

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar on Thursday maintained that opposition politicians were involved in the worst violations of the Covid-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) over the last one year.

"Two weeks ago, [PPP Chairman] Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was threatening to hold the prime minister [Imran Khan] and ministers accountable if Covid-19 spreads further in Karachi,” the minister pointed out in a tweet.

“Now the Pakistan Democratic Movement [PDM] has announced staging a rally this month in Karachi! Sadly the worst violations of Covid-19 SOPs in the last one year have come from politicians," he added.

The minister, who is also the chairman of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Covid-19, said he had recommended that the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) elections should be postponed for a couple of months and a special vaccination campaign should run before the polls, but his proposal was turned down.

"Since the elections, the positivity [rate] of AJK is running between 25% and 30%. Elections have acted as a super spreader event," he added.

In another tweet, Umar said some 40 million vaccination doses had been administered so far.

"The last 10 million took only nine working days to administer.  Let's vaccinate and make Pakistan safe from this disease.”

On August 3, it was reported that Pakistan passed a major milestone of vaccinating 1 million people in a single day against the coronavirus.

"Happy to report that the target we had set for 1 million vaccinations in a day was crossed,” Umar had tweeted.

The national tally of total active coronavirus cases on Thursday was recorded at 86,217 -- the highest during the fourth wave of the pandemic with 4,934 more people testing positive for the virus and 3,376 people recovering from the disease during the last 24 hours.

A total of 102 Covid-19 patients in the country died during the past 24 hours, 98 of whom were under treatment at hospitals, according to an update issued by the NCOC – the nerve centre of the country’s collective response to the pandemic.

Most of the deaths occurred in Sindh followed by Punjab. Out of the total 102 deaths, 45 of the patients were under treatment on ventilators.

There are 4,584 Covid-19 patients under treatment in a critical condition -- 71 of them admitted to hospitals in the past 24 hours.

The countrywide Covid-19 positivity ratio during the past 24 hours was recorded 8.3%. The positivity ratio is the percentage of actual positive cases appearing in every 100 tests performed to identify infected individuals.

The maximum ventilators were occupied in four cities including 47% in Islamabad, 42% in Multan, 40% in Bahawalpur and 36% in Peshawar.

The maximum number of oxygen beds was also occupied in four cities -- Abbottabad 71%, Karachi 59%, Diamer 50% and Swat 44%.

A total of 59,397 tests were conducted across the country on Wednesday, including 19,978 in Sindh, 19,773 in Punjab, 10,994 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 5,421 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 974 in Balochistan, 743 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 1,514 in AJK.

Around 974,890 people have recovered from the disease so far across Pakistan making it a significant count with over 90% recovery ratio of the affected patients.

Since the pandemic broke out, a total of 1,085,294 cases were detected in the country including 406,109 in Sindh, 368,195 in Punjab, 150,026 in K-P, 92,233 in ICT, 28,347 in AJK, 31,341 in Balochistan and 9,043 in G-B.

About 24,187 deaths have been recorded in the country since the contagion emerged.

Around 6,316 patients perished in Sindh, 39 of them since Wednesday. A total of 11,292 people died in Punjab -- 36 of them in the past 24 hours.

As many as 4,604 people expired in K-P, 16 of them died since Wednesday.

A total of 824 individuals died in ICT, two of them in the past 24 hours. The Covid-19 death toll remained 332 in Balochistan. Three patients died in in G-B since Wednesday, pushing the region’s toll to 161.

Four succumbed to the deadly virus in AJK, taking the toll to 658.

A total of 16,675,527 Covid-19 tests have been conducted so far, while 639 hospitals across the country are equipped with coronavirus facilities.

Separately, the PIA will run eight special flights to airlift 10 million doses of the Covid vaccine from China to Pakistan.

PIA Country Manager for China Qadir Bux Sangi said some of the flights of the national flag carrier would leave Beijing Airport later on Thursday with Chinese vaccines onboard.

“So far PIA has brought around 35 million doses of the Sinopharm and CanSino vaccines to Pakistan from China”, he added.

The government intends to achieve its target of administering 70 million jabs to people through its nationwide vaccination campaign.

(With input from APP)