Covid restrictions extended till
April 13; 100 more Pakistanis die
Staff Reporter Islamabad
The government of Punjab on Saturday announced the closure of out-patient departments and surgery centres at major public health facilities across the province amid the third wave of Covid-19.
The Punjab Health Department has closed public hospital OPDs and surgery centres in seven Covid-19 districts of Punjab for 10 days.
The Punjab districts where OPDs have been closed include Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujrat, Sialkot and Rawalpindi.
Moreover, the provincial health department has cancelled all vacations of health workers. The decision to reopen OPDs will be taken after April 20.
Meanwhile, in view of the third wave of coronavirus in Pakistan, fuelled by UK variant, the National Command and Operation Centre on Saturday decided to extend restrictions in place to stem the spread of the deadly contagion till April 13.
The development comes at a time when the country reported 100 deaths from Covid-19, the second consecutive day for such grim statistics and recorded 5,139 cases during the previous 24-hour period.
Most of the fatalities occurred in Punjab followed by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Out of the 100 deaths, 93 succumbed to the disease while under treatment in a hospital, out of which 31 were on ventilator support.
According to the NCOC, 5,139 fresh infections were reported during the period, making it the third consecutive day when the country reported over 5,000 cases.
During the period of a day, the total count of active cases was recorded at 73,078 and the positivity rate stood at 10.47 percent.
The health facilities across the country conducted 49,069 coronavirus detection tests, taking the total number of Covid-19 tests to 10,688,894 since the first case was reported.
According to the statistics, 88 patients were declared critical, adding to the total number of patients suffering from sensitive health conditions up to 4,204.
Meanwhile, Punjab has reported 2,628 new infections of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.
According to Punjab’s Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, 57 more patients of the disease died of Covid-19 in the province. The tally of total deaths by Covid-19 in the province has reached 6,908.
With addition of 2,628 new infections, the provincial tally of confirmed Covid-19 cases has surged to 246,000.
Overall 294 coronavirus patients recovered in the province in the last 24 hours, increasing total recoveries from the virus to 200,000.
Sindh on Saturday reported 466 new cases and six deaths in the last 24 hours.
