–12 deaths, 535 recoveries reported in Sindh while 817 new cases emerge
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday said that 12 more coronavirus patients have died and 535 have recovered while 817 new cases emerged across the province in the past 24 hours, warning that the situation was critical.
“The situation seems to be critical in the sense that not only recoveries are increasing but the ratio of new patients and death rate are also on the rise,” he said in a statement issued from CM’s House.
Analysing the situation, CM Murad said that for the first time the recovery rate has jumped from 22 per cent to 24 per cent when 533 patients were cured and discharged to their homes. Simultaneously, he said, the number of new patients which were 758 on Thursday increased to 817 on Friday.
“The increase in new cases depends on the number of tests — when number of tests is increased the number of new patients shows upsurge in the cases,” he said and added “this shows that the infected people exist and they keep infecting others, therefore, number of patients keep multiplying every day”.
Talking about deaths, the CM said that 75 deaths stemming from coronavirus were reported from May 9 to May 14. “This shows that on average more than 12 patients lose their lives every day – this is not a good sign and needs to be controlled through self-protection and administrative measures,” he added.
Similarly, he said, by Friday morning 535 patients recovered and were discharged while 817 new patients were admitted. “This shows that the pressure on our health system which should have been decreased with the discharge of 535 we have to arrange another 282 beds to accommodate 817 new patients,” he added.
CM Murad said that the patients who have been kept in home isolation were being frequently looked after by doctors and in case of emergency they were shifted to hospital. “My strategy is to contain the virus by isolating the patients and stop its further spread by implementing social distancing and other standard operating procedures (SOPs),” he said and added this would be possible when people would cooperate and understand the situation.
Giving details of the patients, he said that 11,055 were under treatment, and out of them 9,651 were in home isolation, 887 at isolation centres and 517 in different hospitals.
“The figures show that five per cent of the total patients are in hospitals, while 21 per cent are in critical condition and 35 patients have been put on ventilators,” he said.
According to the CM, out of 817 new cases, 567 belonged to Karachi and out of these, 139 belong to East, 125 Central, 115 South, 102 Malir, 52 West and 34 Korangi.
He said that at present there were 2,470 cases in South, 2,324 in East, 1,925 in Central, 1,508 in Malir, 982 in Korangi, 1289 in West.
Sharing the data of other districts, CM Murad said that 57 cases were detected in Larkana, 23 in Sukkur, 22 in Khairpur, 19 in Kambar-Shahdadkot, 16 in Ghotki, 12 in Sanghar, 11 in Hyderabd, seven Jacobabad, three each in Jamshoro, Shaheed and Shikarpur and one in Tando Allahyar.
The chief minister said that following eight suspected deaths in a Mohalla, 122 samples of their contacts were taken, and out of them, 35 have tested positive. “We are tracing more contacts [of the dead and the newly infected] so that they could be tested,” he said.
CM Murad said that 291 samples of Pir Jo Goth were tested, and out of them 47 tested positive for the virus.
The chief minister urged the people of Sindh to be responsive to be SOPs and other guidelines being given to them by experts and the World Health Organisation (WHO) time to time, otherwise, the country would not be able to defeat the pandemic.
