LAHORE: Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid on Wednesday disclosed the majority of the coronavirus cases in Punjab were being reported from Lahore.
“Lahore has been the province’s hotspot since the outbreak in Pakistan and even now, most positive cases are bein reported from Lahore,” she said while speaking to a television channel.
Over 200 neighbourhoods in Lahore were put under smart lockdown recently. Rashid said that the virus hotspots were continuously switching places in Lahore. She further said a total of 1.6 million tests have been conducted so far.
Across Punjab, smart lockdowns have been imposed in 44 areas in Multan, 47 in Rawalpindi, 16 in Sahiwal, 24 in Sargodha, 37 in Bahawalpur and 17 in Dera Ghazi Khan.
Another 34 localities in Faisalabad, 35 in Bhakkur 35 and 14 areas in Gujranwala were put under a smart lockdown.
The federal authorities said it is closely monitoring Lahore “as every second case is being reported there”. Prime Minister Imran Khan told a cabinet meeting Tuesday that the provincial governments should implement more “smart” lockdowns and improve their testing and tracking to reduce the spread.
Pakistan on Wednesday reported 1,313 infections of the novel coronavirus after conducting 26,565 tests — a positivity ratio of 4.94 percent.
PM Imran on Tuesday reiterated his longstanding view that Pakistan cannot afford another quarantine and urged citizens to wear face masks in public to curb the spread of the virus and protect lives and livelihoods.
Health authorities have been sounding the alarm about a second wave of the virus for several weeks now. Daily infections and deaths are once more on the rise, raising fears that disease is making a comeback as the public becomes more apathetic toward social distancing measures.
Meanwhile, the country has yet to fully utilise its claimed testing capacity of 73,472 and is currently testing significantly below numbers proposed by global health experts. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the government’s testing policies likely only record the most symptomatic patients while ignoring the spread among asymptomatic carriers, which recent studies have suggested comprise the majority of infections in the country.
