Five more fall prey to coronavirus in Sindh

With more five people falling victim to the novel coronavirus in a day, the death toll rose to 176 in Sindh on Friday. Four out of the deceased diagnosed with the COVID-9 belonged to Karachi. The new coronavirus cases which emerged in the province on Friday were 598.

“Today is another unfortunate day when we have lost five lives – four in Karachi and one in Larkana – due to the COVID-19 during the last 24 hours, raising the death toll due to the disease to 176 in the province,” Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said while giving a briefing on the COVID-19 situation in the province.

For the first time, 5,532 samples were tested in the province in a single day, he said, adding that 598 of them tested positive for the coronavirus.

“This constitutes a 10.8 per cent ratio of the cases diagnosed against 5,532 tests,” he said. “This is the highest ratio since February 29 when the first case was detected in the province.”

Of the total 598 COVID-19 cases which emerged on Friday, 467 were detected in Karachi, while 50 were detected in Hyderabad. In Karachi, District South has had new 107 cases, East 98, Central 73, Malir 58, Korangi 47 and West 30.

The chief minister said one new case surfaced in Jamshoro, three in Badin, 20 cases in Shaheed Benazirabad, four in Sanghar, two in Tando Muhammad Khan, six in Ghotki, nine in Sukkur, 10 in Larkana, three cases in Dadu, nine in Matiari, three in Mirpurkhas and 10 in Shikarpur.

One patient who was not resident of Sindh also tested positive for the COVID-19, he added. The CM said a 19-year-old boy and three other people aged 60, 62 and 81 died in Karachi while a 55-year-old man died in Larkana.

Murad said the COVID-19 testing capacity in Sindh had been increased to 5,600 per day and it was being operated at 98.8 per cent of its capacity by conducting 5,532 tests. “So far 81,610 tests have been conducted against which 9,691 were diagnosed positive,” he added.

Talking about the causalities, he said with five more deaths, the death toll had reached 176, which was 1.8 per cent of the total patients. Giving details of the 7,575 patients under treatment, the chief minister said 6,421 were in home isolation, 627 at isolation centres and 527 at hospitals.

“I am sorry to say that 164 were in critical condition, of them 18 (or 17.2 per cent) are on ventilators,” he said and urged the people to pray for their early recovery.

Highest number of deaths

Between Wednesday and Thursday, Sindh had witnessed the highest number of deaths due to the coronavirus in 24 hours when 14 people, including two women, lost their lives due to the contagious viral disease.

This was stated by the chief minister in a statement issued a day earlier. He said of the 14 victims of the novel coronavirus, 12 died in Karachi and the other two passed away in Sukkur and Hyderabad.

“It is a sad day for us when 14 people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 in a single day in the province. Of them, 12 died at various health facilities in Karachi while one each passed away in Sukkur and Hyderabad,” the chief minister said, adding that with the 14 new deaths, the death toll due to COVID-19 had reached 171 in the province.

“Though the death rate due to COVID-19 is merely 1.9 per cent, yet we are losing precious lives and we can control it if we all observe SOPs and guidelines of the experts in letter and spirit,” he remarked as he advised the people to adopt precautionary measures to prevent themselves and their families from contracting the disease.