Coronavirus Update: Sindh still threatened

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Sindh still remained threatened by COVID-19 with its maximum of 300 new infections, among the provinces, on August 8 when the authorities confirmed testing of 10,001 samples across the province during the last 24 hours.

According to official data, Sindh was followed, in term of number of tests, by Punjab (7,114 tests with 137 positive cases), KPK (2314 with 96 new cases) and Balochistan (697 with 49 cases). Pakistan overall had 634 new cases on August 8. 

In Sindh, surprisingly, the LUMHS laboratory at Hyderabad performed as many as 5,262 samples during the last 24 hours ending on August 8 afternoon but did not find any positive case while other laboratories operating in the interior districts of the province gave 3 to 14% positive results for COVID-19, according to an official data. 

The Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his daily COVId-19 statement, remarked that as many as 450 patients had recovered from the diseases during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cured patients to 114,515 for the province. 

He further said that as of August 8, there were 5,869 active patients of COVID-19 in the province, including 5,489 at homes, six at isolation centres and 374 at hospitals.

A total of 254 patients were told undergoing there critical phase of their illness, while 44 of them were put on ventilators.

Without giving any details about hospitalization, age, gender and districts of the deceased patients, the statement mentioned that three more COVID-19 fatalities had taken across the province, taking the total of deaths to 2,262.

In the meantime, Karachi witnessed an increase of 22% in its daily new cases, in comparison to August 7 numbers.

A total of 4,415 samples were taken up by 14 testing establishment in the city during the last 24 hours, out of which 335 were found positive for COVID-19, including 277 new infections.

Karachi, in terms of new cases, was followed by Hyderabad (9), Thatta (8), Badin (7), Dadu (7), Larkana (6), Jamshoro (4), Shikarpur (3), Sukkur (3), Umerkot (2) and Shaheed Benazirabad (2) while Mirpurkhas and Sanghar reported one cases each, among other districts.

Sindh’s overall infection rate was 15% compared to Pakistan’s 13% on August 8.