GUJRAT: The district recorded the highest confirmed cases of Covid-19 in a single day on Wednesday as 104 people tested positive for the virus.

Of them, 15 are police officials. Several pregnant women also tested positive for the virus.

Local administration and health authorities say that the rapid increase in the number of infected patients is the result of an aggressive campaign of random sampling in the various public places of the city as well as the other towns of district in the last four days in which over 900 people were tested.

They say the Gujrat district has so far tested 4,411 people, of which results of around 3,260 were negative while the results of 823 samples are pending.

Also, 176 people have also been discharged from the hospital.

A spokesman for the Gujrat police said that the 15 cops have been shifted to isolation wards whereas 40 other officials tested negative for the virus while the results of 122 officials are pending.

Gujrat reported the first case on March 16, who was an expat from Spain and later on his son, both residents of Shadiwal, also tested positive. After which, cases rapidly increased until the third week of April.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2020