LAHROE: Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said that the corona virus situation in the province was improving, citing lower positivity rates and bed occupancy.
While addressing a press conference here on Sunday, she said that over the last week, the number of people recovering from the corona virus had increased.
Giving details about the occupancy rates of beds and ventilators, the minister said 2,897 beds were allocated for corona virus patients in primary care hospitals of which 410 were currently occupied while only nine ventilators out of a total of 112 were in use.
The highest occupancy rate of ventilated beds was in Multan (67pc) followed by Lahore at 38pc, Bahawalpur at 32pc and Rawalpindi at 16pc, she shared, adding that high positivity rates were now being reported by districts located in the south of the province.
Only three districts in the province Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Khanewal now had a positivity rate higher than five per cent, according to Rashid, while the positivity rate in Lahore, considered a corona virus hotspot previously, had reduced to 1.5pc.
The bed occupancy rate has significantly reduced in other districts. Rashid said there had also been a marked reduction in the bed occupancy of high dependency units (HDUs). Giving a breakdown of the rates, she said it was 54pc in Multan while in the rest of the province, it was below 40pc.
Only six areas in Multan with a population of 736 people were currently under smart lockdown, she said. All non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) decided by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) would remain in place, she added.
She said the provincial government was reopening swimming pools while tourism has also been reopened subject to SOPs. The NCOC would take a decision on reopening cinemas and theatres next week, she added.
She urged people to continue following SOPs, saying that if people did two things — properly maintained SOPs and got vaccinated — then the government would be able to “control the pandemic” within the next three to four months.
The minister stressed that the government had adequate stocks of vaccines. She clarified, however, that the first dose of only one vaccine would be administered at all vaccination centres at a time.
“The vaccines available to the government are Sinopharm, SinoVac, AstraZeneca and CanSino. People often times come to us and say we want a [particular] vaccine. Vaccine of only one kind will be administered at a time. Right now, the administration of SinoVac has started at all our centres.
Rashid said that the formulation and packaging of the Chinese CanSino vaccine was being done at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad.
Over the last 24 hours, 696 new coronavirus cases were reported in Punjab while 22 more people succumbed to the virus. The province’s case tally has reached 339,073 while its death toll stands at 9,982.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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