Five major cities contribute 70% of virus cases in Pakistan: NCOC

ISLAMABAD: Five major cities — Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi — contribute 70 per cent of coronavirus cases in Pakistan, according to the National Command and Operation Center ( NCOC) data.

A meeting of the NCOC was informed that Mirpur ( Azad Jammu and Kashmir), Hyderabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Peshawar were among the top cities with persistently rising positivity ratio.

During the last one week, 46 deaths and around 3,000 new cases were recorded daily on an average. However, the tally of new cases during the past 24 hours dropped to 2,829, with 43 deaths.

So far 395,185 cases have been detected since the outbreak of the virus in Pakistan. Of them, 7,985 people have died and 339,810 recovered. Currently, 47,390 people have been suffering from the deadly virus. Among these, 2,186 are stated to be in critical condition and the number of critical patients is rising fast.

The NCOC meeting took stock of data related to positivity ratio, occupancy of oxygenated beds and ventilators across the country, besides availability of medical equipment for treatment and enforcement of smart lockdowns and other measures to curb the second wave of COVID-19.

Health experts briefed the meeting on the national positivity ratio of 7.01%, explaining that the positivity ratio — counted through number of positive cases in 100 samples — was 16.58pc in Azad Kashmir, 15.31pc in Sindh, 9.12% in Balochistan, 5.56% in Gilgit-baltistan, 5.30% in Islamabad, 5.31% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 3.45% in Punjab.

According to them, Mirpur (AJK) has the highest positivity ratio (24.85%), followed by Hyderabad (22.18%), Karachi (18.96%), Muzaffarabad (17.95%), Peshawar (11.12%), Queta (8.84%), Rawalpindi (6.80%), Gilgit (6.77%) and Lahore (4%).

While 2,964 patients were on oxygenated beds on Sunday, 2,186 of them were in critical condition. Punjab has 620 critical patients, Sindh 681, KP 488, Islamabad 315, AJK 50 and Balochistan and Gilgit-baltis¬tan have 16 patients each.