Alarm bells ring in Karachi as Covid ratio surges past 20%

Karachi, June 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) Karachi recorded a Covid-19 positivity ratio of over 20 per cent in the last 24 hours while the national caseload witnessed a minor surge during the past few days, government data showed on Thursday.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), 268 new cases were reported in the country when 12,513 tests were conducted, taking the positivity ratio to 2.14 per cent - the highest since March 5 when a 2 per cent ratio was recorded, The News reported.

Meanwhile, 75 patients were in critical care across Pakistan while one person succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours.

Karachi, the country's financial hub, is witnessing a sharp rise in new infections and detected 138 cases when 650 samples were tested, taking the city's positivity rate to 21.23 per cent.

The second most affected city is Abbotabad, where the positivity rate is 8.7 per cent.

In a meeting at the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) on Wednesday, the health authorities discussed the prevailing situation in detail.

While chairing the meeting, Federal Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel advised all provinces and regions to administer booster doses on a priority basis to further improve protection against Covid transmission.

Health experts and officials in Karachi also confirmed a slight but steady increase in hospitalisation due to Covid-19, saying mostly elderly people who were not vaccinated had been testing positive for the contagious disease after they were brought to public and private health facilities in the city with fever and respiratory distress, The News reported.

Officials at some private hospitals in Karachi said that the positivity ratio of cases at some hospital labs was double compared to the ratio being reported by the NIH for Karachi.

They said the hospitalisation of patients infected with Covid-19 had been increasing with each passing day.

Source: IANS