Amraiz Khan
Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid on Sunday warned against looming strong and severe second wave of Corona pandemic in Punjab, urging for utmost caution till the introduction of new vaccine.
Addressing a press conference at Chief Minister Secretariat here on Sunday, the Health Minister said that cases that were reduced to less than 100 a day around mid September, have now increased manifolds. She said 2,979 people had died due to Covid-19 so far in Punjab and in the last 24 hours, 19 people have lost their lives.
Special Secretary Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Iqbal Ahmed, Additional Secretary Admin Primary Healthcare Ms. Sara Rashid, Ms. Rubina Afzal from Directorate General Public Relations Punjab, senior officials and the media representatives were present on the occasion.
Dr Yasmin said that the government has been insisting on people to follow SOPs since the past few months as Corona pandemic had not ended. “Now we have seen a sudden rise in the number of cases. Patients with moderate to severe symptoms are admitted to hospitals only. Currently 997 people are admitted to hospitals out of whom 145 are on ventilators and 475 are on oxygenated beds and 16,204 patients are in quarantine/self-isolation. Healthcare staff is fighting on frontline and as many as 2638 health members got infected. The cities worst affected are Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala.” In Gujranwala, the test to positivity ratio has increased to 4 percent. Around 25 days back, the positivity ratio in Multan reached 31 per cent and after a lot of hard work it was reduced to 17 per cent and although it has been brought down to 12 per cent, it still remains highest in Punjab. The increase in Positivity Ratio is seriously alarming in Punjab. Similarly, in Multan out of all beds reserved for Covid-19 patients, 65 per cent are occupied and 41 ventilators out of a total of 68 are currently in use.”
The health minister said that currently smart lockdown has been imposed in 2030 localities of the province, restricting movement of almost 40,000 people. She said the reason behind the strong second wave is utter disregard for SOPs by people. She added that by the end of summers, cases had come down significantly in the first wave due to which the government had opened up educational institutions and businesses. She said now everyone was worried and the government has placed restrictions on business and closed down educational institutions.
Dr Yasmin Rashid further said: “The government had sent facemasks and hand sanitizers to Gujranwala gathering, which were turned down by opposition. Afterwards we saw positivity ratio went up in Gujranwala.” She claimed that all statistics of the pandemic are shared with public and if the cases continue to increase, the government will be left with no option to impose lockdown.
