KARACHI: The mayor of Chinese city of Zhangjiajie has donated 20,000 medical, surgical masks to the Karachi commissioner to help fight coronavirus pandemic.

Official sources said on Sunday that the gift from the municipal government of the Chinese city was handed to Commissioner Iftikhar Shallwani at his office.

They said that the commissioner thanked the Chinese government, especially the mayor of Zhangjiajie, saying Pakistan had a long and strong relationship with China and the gift would further strengthen the friendly relationship between the two countries and would open the corridor of mutual relationship between the two cities.

Mayor Liu Gean wrote a letter to the commissioner expressing the desire to further promote cooperation between the two cities.

19 more patients die, 889 test positive for Covid-19 in Sindh

In the letter, he said he was looking forward to working in travel, economy and trade, culture, education, etc, to strengthen the exchanges for a better future and benefit the people of the two cities.

Mr Liu further said that he was very worried about the Covid-19 situation in Karachi and hoped that the donation of masks would contribute a little bit to its fight.

He expressed the hope that the people of the city would soon resume normal life.

19 more die, 889 test positive for Covid-19

As many as 889 new cases of coronavirus emerged when 7,977 samples were tested, raising the tally to 113,007 cases while 19 more patients lost their lives overnight, lifting the death toll to 1,993. This was stated by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in a statement issued here on Sunday.

He said that 7,977 new samples were tested against which 889 new cases were diagnosed that constituted 11 per cent detection rate.

“So far, 642,848 samples have been tested which detected 113,007 cases all over Sindh, of them 92,037 patients have recovered, including 654 recovered overnight,” he added.

The chief minister said that the recovery rate came to 81pc.

He said that 19 patients lost their lives while struggling against the virus.

Mr Shah said that at present 18,977 patients were under treatment, of them 18,169 in home isolation, 65 at isolation centres and 743 at different hospitals.

He added that the condition of 525 patients was stated to be critical, including 74 patients shifted to ventilators.

According to the chief minister, out of 889 new cases, 395 have been detected from Karachi. They include 121 from East, 93 South, 65 Central, 46 Malir, 41 Korangi and 29 West.

He said that Hyderabad had 59 cases, Ghotki 42, Mirpurkhas 32, Khairpur 25, Shaheed Benazirabad 22, Shikarpur 21, Sanghar and Larkana 19 each, Jamshoro 16, Dadu 15, Jacobabad 14, Sukkur 13, Kashmore 12, Thatta, Kambar and Naushehro Feroze 11 each, Matiari 10, Tando Allahyar and Tando Mohammad Khan eight each, Sujawal five and Umerkot had four cases.

The chief minister urged people of the province to stay safe by observing standard operating procedures.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2020