KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Monday that the provincial death rate by coronavirus had increased to 1.7 per cent with the death of 29 more patients while the disease death toll across Sindh now stood at 679.
In a statement issued here from the CM House, the chief minister said that he had enhanced the testing capacity to 8,600 per day.
He said that 1,447 new coronavirus cases had been detected by testing 8,513 samples within 24 hours this way.
“Utilising our 99 per cent testing capacity, we tested 8,513 samples against which 1,447 new cases of coronavirus emerged that constituted 17 per cent,” the CM said and added that so far, 139,522 samples had been tested which diagnosed 39,555 cases as positive which constituted 16.5 per cent.
He added that 19,739 patients were under treatment, of them, 18,263 were at home isolation, 60 at isolation centres and 1,416 at different hospitals.
The CM also disclosed that 435 patients were in critical condition, among them 83 were on ventilators. He prayed for their early recovery.
He said that 468 more patients recovered overnight and returned to their normal life. The number of patients recovered so far has reached 19,137 which constituted 48.3 per cent of the total patients.
Shah said that out of 1,447 cases of the province, 963 alone belonged to Karachi. They include 284 to East, 237 Central, South 214, Malir 130, Korangi 63 and West 35. He added that Hyderabad has 54 cases, Shaheed Benazirabad 39, Larkana and Sanghar 36 each, Ghotki 34, Khairpur 33, Jamshoro 17, Dadu 14, Badin 13, Kashmore 11, Mirpurkhas nine, Sukkur eight, Matiari and Naushehroferoze two each, Tando Allahyar, Tando Mohammad Khan, Umerkot and Kambar have one case each.
Analysing the situation in Sindh, Shah said that the detection of new cases had come down from 22 to 17 per cent, while death ratio which used to be around 1.5 per cent had increased to 1.7 per cent and the recovery ratio had come down from 50.1 per cent to 48 per cent.
“This shows the problem is aggravating and we have to be more careful and realistic in adopting a new lifestyle – that is how to live with the virus,” he said while urging people to adopt SOPs, wearing masks and avoid going into crowds.
