Pak plans lockdown in virus-hit cities from May 1
Highest daily death count was 157 recorded on April 23; PM stresses need for smooth supply of food items; Iran to be asked to export oxygen to Pak; govt decides to hike local production of oxygen by 250 tonnes per day
Pakistani authorities on Wednesday reported 201 deaths from coronavirus, the country’s highest single-day toll of the pandemic.
According to National Command and Control Center, 5,292 new cases of infection were reported in the past 24 hours.
Since last year, Pakistan has reported 17,530 deaths from COVID-19 among 810,231 cases.
The current surge has forced the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to deploy troops to help ensure people follow social distancing rules in cities hard hit by coronavirus cases.
Pakistan is planning a lockdown in the worsthit cities in the first week of May.
The previous highest daily death count was 157 recorded on April 23.
A total of 5,292 new cases were reported on Tuesday, bringing the total cases to 810,231 in the country of more than 220 million people.
Imran Khan on Tuesday indicated that the government might go for complete lockdown in coronavirus-hit cities and stressed the need for smooth supplies of food items during lockdown.
“The Prime Minister has directed that food supplies should be improved if we go for complete lockdown,” said federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in a press conference ater weekly cabinet meeting.
The cabinet meeting, presided over by the Prime Minister, decided that Iran would be asked to export oxygen to Pakistan for COVID-19 patients on humanitarian basis by relaxing the ban the neighbouring country had imposed on oxygen export due to the alarming situation of Covid-19 it was facing, the Dawn reported.
Keeping in view the COVID-19 catastrophe in India, the meeting also decided to increase local production of oxygen by 250 tonnes per day and reduce use of oxygen in some industries. On this, Minister for Industries Khusro Bakhtiyar is holding an important meeting on Wednesday with all stakeholders.
Meanwhile, a cabinet member, who did not want to be named, told Dawn that the government feared that it would have to impose complete lockdown if the intensity of spread of coronavirus increased by 14 per cent and above.
Then the government would have no other option but to impose complete lockdown, he added.
He said the government had decided to supply 250 additional tonnes of oxygen to the hospitals through which 2,500 chronic coronavirus patients could be treated.
The cabinet member said that Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who had recently returned from Iran, informed the meeting about worst pandemic situation in Iran and said he had asked Iranian government for supply of oxygen to Pakistan.
Qureshi asked the prime minister to take measures to convince Iran to lit ban on oxygen export to the extent of supplying it to Pakistan. He said that the government was also considering import of oxygen from China.
The national posititivity ratio, the number of infections among those tested, was 10.8%.
The death rate, the number of infections resulting in fatalaties, hit the highest point since the start of the pandemic, reaching around 2.2%.
Only around two million vaccinatations have been administered in Pakistan, and the country has struggled to procure supplies to cover enough of its population. Officials have said health care facilities are at risk of being overwhelmed.
Around 6,286 COVID-19 patients were being treated in 631 hospitals on Tuesday, and more than 70% of ventilators and oxygenated beds were occupied in hospitals in many major cities, according to the NCOC.
On Monday, Pakistani army troops were deployed in 16 major cities with high positivity rates, to assist civilian law enforcement in enforcing measures meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus, including the wearing of masks in public and the closing of non-essential businesses ater 6:00pm.
Stricter measures were taken in a handful of cities with the highest positivity rates this week, and on Tuesday Health Minister Faisal Sultan warned such steps could be extended to other areas if the public did not heed advice on social distancing, wearing masks, and other precautionary measures, especially during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan with the upcoming Eid holiday next month.