Zubair Qureshi
The federal capital on Saturday made history by recording less than 100 cases—97 to be exact— and one death in a twenty-four hour period.
This is for the first time in months that the number of new coronavirus cases has dropped to such low. On Friday, the city had seen 113 new cases in one day but Saturday turned out to be “a day with the lowest number of virus in 24 hours.”
This is the same city where on June 13, some 771 cases of coronavirus were reported in one day sending shivers down the backbone of the administration and the district health department.
However, Saturday’s figures raised hopes that July would not be the ‘cruelest’ month and the number would keep under control.
During the last two weeks, the number of coronavirus cases is declining with passage of every day and the credit for this goes to the Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat and his team that worked day and night and sealed various areas of the city and kept an eye of the loopholes causing infections to spread.
Today, one can safely say coronavirus in Islamabad is on the fast decline and on Saturday, the total cases were accounted at 13,292, deaths 130 and recoveries 8,610.
This is something quite cherishing and a result of our team’s efforts, said the District Health Officer (DHO) of Islamabad Dr Zaeem Zia.
Today, the death rate in Islamabad is lower than 1 per cent, he said. According to the Deputy Commissioner, Hamza Shafqaat before Eid al Fitr, the numbers of cases in Islamabad were around 3,000 but after Eid, it jumped to 10,000 creating a crisis-like situation.
However, the district administration along with the health and police teams worked out a strategy and implemented it with full force. We adopted ‘Test, Trace & Quarantine’ policy and patiently waited for its results. “Today, coronavirus is positively down to 5% and in single digits,” which is something very promising.
Meanwhile, upon completion of 100 days of battle against coronavirus, a ceremony held at the local shopping mall (Safa Gold) to honour officers and employees of the district administration health workers, tiger force, police, doctors, tiger force, volunteers, media and other stakeholders for their day and night efforts to check the virus.
Deputy Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat, Magistrate City Ghulam Murtaza Chandio, police officers and doctors attended the ceremony in good numbers.
The DC lauded the civil administration, police and the health department for doing “very good” work. He also appreciated the role of citizens of Islamabad to help the authorities stem the virus spread by following the government-prescribed guidelines.
He paid tribute to the all frontline soldiers, doctors, paramedical staff, security departments and forces, who are fighting against COVID-19 since 100 Days of battle against the pandemic.
He also appreciated all stakeholders of the society for supporting frontline people to keep their morale high and for taking precautionary measures to minimize the effect of this pandemic.
