Zubair Qureshi
Monday turned out to be the second consecutive day with fewer cases of coronavirus reported in a period of 24 hours in the federal capital as compared to the last week.
According to the National Health Ministry 341 new infections were reported in one day while last Monday the tally of one day cases was 449.
However, according to the health experts and the District health department even 341 is an alarming figure and only by following the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) can we check the spread of coronavirus.
With these new figures, the total number of cases of coronavirus in the city reached 30,123 while with five deaths in the same period the death toll jumped to 314.
According to the District Health Officer Dr Zaeem Zia, on Nov 20, Covid-19 positivity rate was 7.16% while on Nov 30 it was 5.29%.
We ran 5,149 tests in the city that showed 18% rate of active cases while death rate stands at 1%, he said. In the capital city the number of actives cases is 5,665 which is again an alarming figure.
Meanwhile, in the 6th Global Symposium on Health System Research held in UAE, which was attended by a large number of policymakers, practitioners and researchers from more than 100 countries virtually, a European university recommended for the model of Islamabad and wanted to know the way we were combating the virus
According to Dr Zaeem Zia though the trends were reducing, it was not yet clear whether the trend of (drop in cases) would remain or not. It is too early to say anything about it, he said.
“I would suggest the masses keep following SOPs and do not go out unnecessarily. We are running our surveillance activities 24/7 and expect people to cooperate with our teams,” he said. Replying to a question, Dr Zia said contact tracing was the main focus of the District Health Department as its teams were busy in interviewing, conducting tests and putting the positive cases in quarantine.
Meanwhile, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has finalized its recommendations for the procurement of the vaccine against the deadly disease.
The recommendations will be presented before the federal cabinet during its meeting scheduled for Tuesday (today) and approval will be sought to avail the opportunity to get the vaccine at the earliest.
