LAHORE: Out of record 34,681 Covid-19 tests conducted during the last 24 hours in Punjab, as many as 2766 fresh virus cases and 27 more fatalities were reported across the province taking the provincial tally of cases to 270,338 and death toll to 7457.

With conducting of more corona tests, the positivity rate of the virus has reached to 7.97%. With the recovery of 1845 more virus patients, the number of recovered patients in the province has reached to 218082.

In Lahore, 1413 fresh Covid-19 cases and 05 deaths were reported during the last 24 hours. There is burden on health facilities while smart lockdown is also imposed in different localities. The HDUs and ICUs are occupied with virus patients with ratio of 90 percent and 82 percent, respectively.

As per break-up of corona cases and deaths in major cities of the province, Lahore has so far reported 143869 cases and 3062 deaths, Rawalpindi 21720 cases and 1196 deaths, Faisalabad 16614 cases and 738 deaths, Multan 12628 cases and 475 deaths, Bahawalpur 5888 cases and 188 deaths, Gujranwala 7013 cases and 253 deaths, Gujrat 6389 cases and 105 deaths, Rahim Yar Khan 3852 cases and 159 deaths, Sargodha 5652 cases and 190 deaths, Sheikhupura 2788 cases and 78 deaths and Sialkot reported 6212 cases and 205 deaths.

In the wake of increasing number of corona cases, Punjab government is going to scale up contact tracing and increase the number of smart lockdowns in the province, sources said.

The Specialized Healthcare Department has arranged 3103 beds in Isolation wards of all government hospitals in the province, out of which, about 2300 beds are vacant. In isolation wards of government hospitals, 446 beds are reserved for corona patients and about 300 beds are unoccupied. There are 640 ventilators for corona patients in all hospitals of the provincial government, of which 370 ventilators are under use while 270 are unoccupied.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021