–KP health minister says Mardan, Hangu residents had arrived in Pakistan from Saudi Arabia and Dubai, respectively
–Punjab CM announces Rs5bn fund, bans tourist destinations, restricts shopping malls, restaurants and hotels to close down by 10pm
ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: Pakistan on Wednesday reported two deaths due to coronavirus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), as the total number of positive cases across the country hit 301 after dozens of new cases were reported in all provinces.
KP Health Minister Taimoor Saleem Jhagra announced that 50-year-old coronavirus patient, Saadat Khan, had passed away in Mardan district nine days after he had arrived in Pakistan from Saudi Arabia. The patient was being treated in Mardan Medical Complex. According to MMC’s medical superintendent Dr Javed Iqbal, the patient’s test results were received on Wednesday.
The announcement was shortly followed by another announcement, wherein the minister announced that a 36-year-old patient named Abdul Fateh, who was being treated at Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, passed away during the treatment. The patient, a resident of Hangu, had returned from Dubai and was found coronavirus-positive.
A few hours earlier, Gilgit-Baltistan spokesperson Faizullah Firaq had suggested that a 90-year-old patient admitted in a hospital over suspicion of coronavirus had lost his life battling the deadly virus.
“A 90-year-old man from Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district died from the virus during treatment,” he said. However, the government later claimed that the patients did not die of coronavirus, but pneumonia and claimed that the spokesperson had misreported the fact.
The number of total cases in Sindh was 208 by Wednesday evening. With the emergence of five new cases, the total number of cases in Punjab has touched 33; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 19 cases while Balochistan has 23 cases and Islamabad has two cases.
A 45-year-old man was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), marking the region’s first case of the virus while 15 cases have been reported in Gilgit-Baltistan. AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider said that the patient was being kept in isolation and his condition was satisfactory. The patient had returned from Taftan recently.
‘Rs5bn FUND TO COMBAT CORONA IN PUNJAB’:
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has announced a special fund to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
The fund, worth Rs5 billion, was aimed at efforts to stop the spread of the virus in the province. This is in addition to a Rs236m sum allocated to the Punjab health department before the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting; the sum was later bumped up to Rs1bn, as per a commitment made by the provincial government.
Speaking to the media, Buzdar said he had visited a quarantine centre, reviewed all necessities there, and was briefed on the latest developments. “There are 189 suspected [cases of coronavirus] in Punjab, 143 were negative, 28 positive, 46 were admitted to hospital, and the results for 38 were awaited,” he said.
The CM said the Punjab government “first took up the corona [virus] issue on January 3 and we immediately set up a control room in our health department, as well as a cabinet committee that monitors [the situation] on a daily basis”.
Noting that measures discussed during the high-level NSC meeting were implemented in the province as is.
HEALTH EMERGENCY, SECTION 144:
He said that the Punjab government has banned tourist destinations, including Murree, and limited visits for people at secretariat and other [public] offices.
“Only skeleton staff will be present there.”
Shopping malls, restaurants, and hotels will be closed down by 10pm, and only medicine shops, groceries, factories, mills, and markets would remain open with no restrictions, the chief minister added. Further, a public health emergency was declared in Punjab and Section 144 imposed.
With regard to strategic measures, Buzdar said the provincial government had requested its federal counterpart to help make the quarantine facilities better. In that regard, Punjab “will provide support wherever required and even to any other province if they need it”.
“We will negotiate with the Balochistan government on Taftan as to whether we should set up our camp [there] or facilitate them but we will do whatever we can for our people at the border,” he said.
“We are in the process of setting up a temporary 1000-bed field hospital so that we are ready should the need arise. Also, 41 high-dependency units have been set up in all districts and three hospitals have been dedicated for coronavirus — in Muzaffargarh, Lahore, and Rawalpindi.
“In addition to that, we have allocated spaces at other [medical] institutes” just in case, he added.
Shortly after Buzdar’s address, the government of Punjab said on Twitter that mobility in markets would be controlled by different measures, ‘work from home’ and social safety measures introduced, and that “quarantines for 5,000 patients is ready”.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab CM Buzdar arrived in Dera Ghazi Khan to oversee the quarantine facilities where pilgrims returning from Taftan border have been kept.
The premier was briefed on the measures taken to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading, as well as the facilities provided to the people who had been quarantined. The prime minister also visited the central command room established to oversee the situation. He also met the people in quarantine and inquired after their health.
‘SINDH HOSPITALS NOT CLOSED’:
Meanwhile, Sindh government spokesperson Murtaza Wahab has refuted rumors pertaining to a province-wide closure of hospitals, clarifying that hospitals in the province will remain open.
“I refute these rumors. We are just trying to regulate [the healthcare] system. We have to ensure that our doctors, nurses and paramedical staff are not fatigued,” he said.
He reiterated that precaution is the only way to prevent the spread of the disease. “The easiest thing is to quarantine ourselves for 14 days,” he asserted.
Murtaza said that, if necessary, strict action will be taken to ensure that all restaurants, shopping malls and public parks in the province will remain closed for the next 15 days to contain the potential spread of the virus.
Appreciating the efforts of all those citizens and businesses that have followed the directives issued by the Sindh government, Wahab said: “We are personally monitoring the situation. But I will admit that there is not 100pc compliance.” He clarified that the orders were not applicable to grocery stores, corner shops and pharmacies.
