KARACHI: Less than a week after the government relaxed Covid-19 restrictions in view of the declining trend of positive cases, the virus transmission rate in Sindh has seen a surge in the first week of March for the first time since January.
According to the provincial health department, Hyderabad reported the highest positivity rate which jacked up from 2.47 per cent to 8.26 per cent in a week. Whereas, Karachi’s positivity rate increased from 3.27 per cent to 5.66 per cent.
The transmission rate in other districts of the province has risen from an average of 1.20 per cent to 1.80 per cent. In the last 24 hours, the health department said, the average province-wide positivity rate stood at the two-month high of 4.58 per cent.
On January 18, the provincial positivity rate was 4.78 per cent. Between January 19 and March 7, it had dropped to below 4 per cent.
The nation on Monday reported 1,592 new infections of the novel coronavirus after conducting 34,347 tests, receiving back a positivity ratio of 4.63 per cent.
With healthcare workers warning of a potential third wave of Covid-19 amidst a new surge in daily infections, Planning Minister Asad Umar on Sunday announced that the vaccination drive for people over 60 would commence from March 10.
Despite passing through two waves of Covid-19, Pakistan has yet to fully utilise its testing capacity of 60,977, with daily testing significantly below numbers proposed by global health experts.
