LAHORE: In the wake of 4th wave of Covid-19 pandemic in the province, the Punjab government has decided to prepare contingency plan to deal with the challenging situation.
“During the last one and half year, public sector hospitals utilized all available resources to save precious lives and doctors and paramedical staff also sacrificed their lives while protecting the patients,” sources in the health department, said, adding: “The credit goes to the government who preempted the intensive Covid situation and made timely arrangements; now contingency plan has been prepared for all hospitals to counter the situation effectively for which heads and MSs of all hospitals and other medical institutions have been directed to make arrangements in this regard.”
The sources added that the provincial government is taking all possible steps to protect the citizens from the fourth wave of Corona. While vaccination against corona is the most effective way to prevent this outbreak, the government is vaccinating maximum number of people on daily basis. If the rate of positive cases will continue to increase, the government may impose a smart lockdown once again, the sources added.
Moreover, Punjab has reported 815 new corona virus cases in the last 24 hours, marking the first time the province detected more than 800 infections in a day in over two months. With 815 fresh infections, the tally of cases has reached to 357,735 while with 08 fresh fatalities; the death toll in the province has reached 11067.
As many as 20049 coronavirus tests conducted during the last 24 hours and the overall positivity rate in the province reached to 4.06%.
Out of 08 deaths reported during the last 24 hours, four were reported in Rawalpindi, one each in Lahore, Gujranwala and Bahawalpur taking the death toll in these districts to 1610, 4424, 432 and 257, respectively.
With the recovery of 368 more corona positive patients, the total number of recovered patients in Punjab has reached to 333,198.
On the other hand, as many as 1361 coronavirus recoveries were reported across the country during the past 24 hours taking the tally of recoveries to 943,020. There are 3,441 virus patients who are in critical condition.
Out of 815 fresh virus cases during the last 24 hours, as many as 379 were reported in Lahore, 162 in Rawalpindi, 42 in Faisalabad, 38 in Multan and 13 in Gujranwala. As per breakup of corona cases and deaths in major cities of the province, Lahore has so far reported 184,088 cases and 4,424 deaths, Rawalpindi 28,647 cases and 1,610 deaths, Faisalabad 21,893 cases and 1,176 deaths, Multan 18,275 cases and 871 deaths, Gujranwala 8,467 cases and 432 deaths, Rahim Yar Khan 6305 cases and 274 deaths, Sargodha 8573 cases and 291 deaths, Sheikhupura 3,898 cases and 121 deaths, Muzaffargarh 2,332 cases and 279 deaths, Bahawalpur 8,354 cases and 257 deaths and Sialkot reported 7,260 cases and 241 deaths.
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has directed administrative machinery to ensure strict implementation of coronavirus related standard operating procedures (SOPs) throughout the province.
The CM directed monitoring teams to continue their checking in markets and other public places and take action as per law in case of violation. He said the numbers of coronavirus cases are increasing day by day due to non-implementation of SOPs. The CM appealed people to follow the SOPs because their cooperation is necessary to check the spread of fourth wave of corona virus.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021