Daily Times

The total active Covid-19 cases in Pakistan on Sunday were recorded at 9,296 as 567 more people tested positive for the deadly virus across country.

At least 16 patients, 15 of whom were under treatment, died at hospitals and one out of hospital, according to the latest update issued by the National command and Operation Centre (NCOC). No Covid-affected person is on ventilator in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Balochistan, while 74 ventilators elsewhere in Pakistan, out of 1,884 allocated for Covid-19 patients, are occupied.

Some 32,062 tests were conducted across the country on Saturday, including 9,094 in Sindh, 11,542 in Punjab, 4,711 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 4,682 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 1,023 in Balochistan, 402 in Gilgit Baltistan (GB), and 608 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). Around 307,069 people have recovered from the disease so far across Pakistan making it a significant count with over 90 percent recovery ratio of the affected patients.

Since the pandemic outbreak, a total of 323,019 cases were detected so far, including AJK 3,437, Balochistan 15,669, GB 4,047, ICT 17,996, KP 38,598, Punjab 101,559 and Sindh 141,713. About 6,654 deaths were recorded in country since the eruption of the contagion, including 2,579 Sindh among five of them died in hospital on Saturday, 2,298 in Punjab 9 of them died in hospital and one out of hospital on Saturday, 1265 in KP, 194 in ICT, 147 in Balochistan one of them in hospital on Saturday, 90 in GB and 81 in AJK.

A total of 4,074,024 corona tests have been conducted so far, while 735 hospitals are equipped with COVID facilities. Some 793 corona patients were admitted in hospitals across the country.

The NCOC said that 83 new COVID-19 cases were reported from the federal capital during last 24 hours. According to an official of NCOC, as many as 132 cases were reported last day while so far total 17,996 cases were reported from the federal capital. He said that 194 deaths were reported from Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) while 16,672 patients had been recovered completely.

Meanwhile, on the direction of Ministry of National Health Services, the district administration of Islamabad has started smart lockdown in different streets of Islamabad to reduce transmission of the infection in selected streets and other sectors of Islamabad. They also started taking actions on violation of SOPs related with the Corona while visiting marriage halls, markets and petrol pumps by its inspection teams. The administration also sealed schools, shops, workshop and restaurants on violation of SOPs. The inspection teams also issued notices to marriage halls besides imposing fines on owners of different shops. Commenting on the situation, an official of Ministry of National Health Services said that several local-level administrative decisions were made to control the disease.

Meanwhile, former US treasury secretary and renowned economist Lawrence ‘Larry’ Summers is of the opinion that had America handled the coronavirus pandemic as well as Pakistan, it could have saved in trillions. He made these comments while talking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday. “America’s failure on Covid-19 is almost unimaginable,” he said. “Heck, if the US had handled the pandemic as well as Pakistan, we would have saved in neighbourhood of $10 trillion.” “The costs of an expanded testing system are trivial compared to the costs of tens of thousands of early deaths. Expanding testing should be a matter of utmost urgency,” tweeted Summers.

US President Donald Trump, despite contracting the virus himself, has continued to cast doubt on the seriousness of the pandemic even as the US death toll topped 200,000. In what has become an overtly political gesture, Trump almost never wears a mask in public. According to the Associated Press, quoting a new poll, more Americans blame the US government instead of foreign nations for the coronavirus crisis in the United States, a rebuke to the Trump administration’s contention that China or other countries are most at fault.