Fear mounts as Omicron cases surge

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan registered its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases — 7,678 — in the last 24 hours, up from 6,808, the second-highest daily toll, since the pandemic started in 2020, official figures showed Friday morning.

Previously, the highest daily toll was recorded on June 13, 2020, when the country had reported 6,825 coronavirus cases, the National Command and Operation Centre's (NCOC) data showed.

With the new infections, the overall cases have moved past 1.35 million. Meanwhile, as many as 59,343 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, and the positivity ratio shot up to 12.93 percent.

The deaths from coronavirus also went up to 23 — the highest since October 15 — in the last 24 hours from five a day earlier, taking the overall death toll to 29,065, official figures showed.

The cases are on the rise, but top officials have refused to impose a lockdown, saying that the country’s economy could not bear the burden of another lockdown. All schools with a high COVID-19 positivity ratio will remain closed for one week across the country, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) announced on Friday.

According to a notification issued in this regard, the NCOC said: "Education institutions, premises, sections, specific classes with high positivity to be closed for ONE week."

The notification further added that provincial administration, in consultation with district health, education authorities, and school administrations, are to set a threshold of cases for deciding such closures.

The NCOC added that COVID testing in education institutes was carried out in major Omicron hit cities to ascertain disease spread among students and ensure accurate disease mapping. The courts in Islamabad have been sealed as 15 judges and 58 staffers were tested positive for corona.

Rapid spread of coronavirus cases is getting dangerous in Punjab as 1,886 new cases were reported on Friday whereas three deaths were reported during the last 24 hours. According to the data shared by the spokesperson for Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD), the number of coronavirus cases in the province reached 458,925 while total number of deaths recorded 13,093 so far.

The P&SHD confirmed the maximum number of coronavirus cases were reported in Lahore with 1,236 cases whereas 4 cases were diagnosed in Attock,,3 in Bahawalnagar,14 in Bahawalpur,5 in Chakwal, 1 in Chiniot, 3 in Dera Ghazi Khan, 52 in Faisalabad,18 in Gujranwala, 7 in Gujrat,1 in Hafizabad, 3 in Jhang, 3 in Jhelum,7 in Kasur,5 in Khanewal, 10 in Khushab,1 in Lodharan, 2 in Mandi Bahauddin, 5 in Mianwali, 48 in Multan, 5 in Muzaffargarh,3 in Nankana Sahib,3 in Narowal,3 in Pakpattan, 1 in Rajanpur,347 in Rawalpindi, 11 in Rahimyar Khan,7 in Sahiwal,12 in Sargodha,17 in Sheikhupura, 4 in Toba Tek Singh, 5 in Vehari and 38 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Sialkot district during the last 24 hours till filing of this news.

The Punjab health department conducted 9,320,756 tests for COVID-19 so far while 431,642 confirmed cases recovered altogether in the province. The Punjab health department urged the masses to follow SOPs for their protection and cover their faces with masks.

Meanwhile, in Karachi, hospitalisations due to COVID-19 continued to rise where case positivity ratio has alarmingly climbed to 45.43 percent, officials confirmed. Sharing his COVID-19 situation report on Friday, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that 21 more cases of Omicron variant emerged when 24 samples were tested, lifting the tally to 521 while 3,467 new cases of Covid-19 were detected through 15,412 tests.

At least three more people also died due to complications of Covid-19 in Sindh, raising the death toll to 7,730, he said adding that during the last two days whole genome and next generation sequencing of 24 Covid-19 samples was done, which detected 21 new cases. Now we have 521 confirmed cases of Omicron variant in the city, the CM added.

Giving details of Covid-19 situation, he said as many as three more patient of coronavirus died overnight lifting the death toll to 7,730 and 3,467 new cases emerged when 15,412 tests were conducted, that came to 7 percent current detection rate. The CM said so far 7,435,098 tests have been conducted against which 518,330 cases were diagnosed, of them 91.5 percent or 474,127 patients have recovered, including 787 overnight. He maintained that currently 36,473 patients were under treatment, of them 36,051 were in home isolation, 26 at isolation centers and 396 at different hospitals and added that the condition of 339 patients was stated to be critical, including 18 shifted to ventilators.

According to him, out of 3,467 new cases, 2,884 have been detected from Karachi, including 1,090 from East, 698 South, 428 Central, 297 Korangi, 204 Malir and 167 West. While in other districts, Hyderabad has 269, Shaheed Benazirabad 41, Dadu 40, Sukkur 32, Ghotki and Jamshoro 22 each, Badin 21, NausheroFeroze 20, Tharparkar 13, Jacobabad 12, Sujawal 11, Larkana, Matiari, Shikarpur and Tando Allahyar 10 each, Kashmore nine, Mirpurkhas five, Qamber, Khairpur and Sanghar one each.

Sharing vaccination data, the CM said that 32,699,678 vaccine doses have been administered upto January 19th and added during the last 24 hours, 206,722 people were inoculated, in total 32,906,400 vaccines have been administered which constituted 59.36 percent of the vaccine eligible population. The chief minister urged the people of the province to follow SOPs.

Health Secretary Zulfiqar Shah told Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah that NCOC has acknowledged the successful COVID vaccination campaign of Sindh government. The secretary said that during the last seven days, an average of 250,000 vaccines have been administered daily in Sindh while 30,000 doses have been administered in educational institutions.