Daily Times

The National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) was informed on Saturday that the Punjab government has developed a mobile application to indicate bed occupancy and availability of ventilators in each and every hospital of the province.

The application will help the officials of Rescue 1122 track the beds and ventilators’ availability in every district of the province, Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid apprised the NCOC, which met here with Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar in the chair. Accordingly, she said, the Rescue 1122 and provincial health department staff are being provided necessary training.

Asad Umar appreciated the Punjab government for taking a lead in developing an application which can update the health officials with real-time data. He directed the other federating units to replicate the initiative for effective handling of those Covid-19 positive patients who have been home-quarantined.

Briefing the NCOC about smart lockdown mechanism in Punjab, Dr Yasmin said that the province is all set to issue detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in this regard. All-out efforts will be made to enforce smart lockdown across province, she added.

The health minister said that Punjab has increased its testing capacity and will run extensive awareness drive on SOPs to communicate the guidelines to the citizens. A notification for home quarantine of the corona-positive patients will be issued shortly, she added.

Sindh Health Minister Azra Fazal Pechuho said the virus spread in central and northern Sindh has been increasing gradually, whereas less number of coronavirus cases are being reported from southern part of the province. She said that at least 22 areas have been under lockdown in Karachi which had emerged as a virus hotspot in Sindh, adding the virus is transmitting to other district due to inter-city movement of the people.

The representatives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Islamabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan also apprised the NCOC about their strategies to enforce the smart lockdowns in their respective areas. The meeting was also informed that the Rural Support Programme Network has been activated in the federal capital to enhance community mobilization against Covid-19. The NDMA shared its plan for procurement of critical equipment. The meeting was also attended by National Coordinator Lt Gen Hamood Uz Zaman, Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan and SAPM on National Security Moeed Yusuf.