Punjab reports highest coronavirus deaths in three months

LAHORE: As per the official data, Punjab has reported its highest daily number of coronavirus-related deaths in three months on Monday.

On October 19, the province carried out 8,623 tests – its lowest in a month – but recorded 108 new cases, while 12 people died from the deadly virus in 24 hours.

This brought the tally of positive cases in Punjab, since the start of the outbreak in late February, to 101,760 and 2,310 people have died to date.

Despite the climbing mortality, the province’s positivity rate has remained low.

On October 18, its test positive percentage was 0.9%. Punjab’s districts to report the highest test positive rate were Gujranwala and Multan. Both recorded a positivity percentage of 2.3% on October 18, as per the report of the World Health Organisation.

Meanwhile, on the same day, the test positive ration in Sindh’s Hyderabad jumped to 24.2%, while the second-highest was recorded in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s Muzaffarabad of 20.4%.

Earlier in the day,  Asad Umar had warned the public of the perils of ignoring the coronavirus safety protocols sharing that the COVID-19 mortality rate in Pakistan has increased by 140% in the last week.

Asad Umar said, “We are collectively committing a blunder by recklessly ignoring all SOPs and the results have started to show”.

The warning from the federal minister came a day after Prime Minister Imran Khan sounded alarm bells saying he feared a "second coronavirus spike" in cities such as Faisalabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi, and Gujranwala, as the winter season approaches.