The Punjab government on Monday announced to start sampling in all jails of the province in order to contain the deadly coronavirus.
In the first phase, a smart sampling of 30 prisoners and 10 staff members will be conducted, according to Mirza Shahid Saleem Baig, Inspector General of Prisons Punjab.
Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Punjab will take samples of prisoners and staff members under the “smart sampling project” to “detect and determine the spread of Covid-19”.
Mirza Shahid Saleem Baig said the smart sampling will help to detect corona patients in Punjab jails and positive coronavirus prisoners will be kept in isolation after the emergence of results. The second phase of smart sampling will start from next week.
Earlier, 487 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported in Punjab in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of cases in the province to 87,043.
The province also reported 7 more virus-related deaths in last 24 hours, pushing the provincial death toll to 2,013.
According to the portal, 58,023 people have recovered from the virus in the province so far. According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), the national tally of cases soared to 251,624 with the addition of 2,769 new cases detected during the previous 24 hours. As many as 22,532 Covid-19 tests were conducted.
