LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Sardar Usman Buzdar on Saturday said that the testing capacity for coronavirus has been increased to 6,000 per day in the province after the number of the testing labs was increased to eight.
Addressing a news conference in Lahore, Buzdar said that 6,000 people would be tested daily to detect if they had caught coronavirus, starting Sunday.
He said that funds of Rs620 million were spent to make the labs operational.
Speaking about the protest of patients at the Lahore Expo Field Hospital, the chief minister assured that he was looking into the matter and an inquiry has been ordered.
“In the coming days, we will also recommend the federal government to approve declaring homes of a few COVID-19 patients as quarantine centres,” he said.
Further, he said smart sampling would begin in six cities, including Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujrat, Gujranwala, and Faisalabad.
“Smart sampling was collecting samples only from a certain number of randomly selected households,” he said.
According to the plan, people would be divided under categories, including media workers, law enforcers, pregnant women admitted in hospitals, government workers at management offices, tuberculosis and AIDS patients, health workers, and prisoners in jails.
These people would be tested for COVID-19, he said, adding that the province had enough protective equipment for every healthcare worker.
He said the provincial government was in talks with the federal government to reopen power-looms, construction, iron, steel and other industries that had labour colonies for their workers.
A day earlier, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari slammed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led government over its “failure to fulfil basic demands of the doctors fighting coronavirus on the frontline” and demanded Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan step down from his role “if he is unable to work as a premier”.
“The Centre should also play its role in supporting the provinces in the war against coronavirus,” he noted.
