LAHORE: The coronavirus claimed nine more lives during the last 24 hours in Punjab, taking the number of total deaths to 2,438 so far.

In a related development, the Punjab government has compiled a study, which shows the people belonging to the 31-45 age group are more vulnerable to the infection, followed by 16-30 age group, contradicting the earlier general reports that the younger generations are less vulnerable to the virus.

One of the reasons given for more occurrence of the virus in younger generations is that the people of these two age groups get infected more due to outdoor activities/movement. A senior official of the health department says most of the people in the groups mentioned above attend educational institutions, do jobs or run businesses and many of them interact with people at their workplaces or educational institutions without preventive measures. Being asymptomatic patients, they transmit virus to their elderly family members or multiply the positive cases by having interaction with other people in utter ignorance. The members of these two age groups require extraordinary caution or care by wearing masks and reducing their outdoor activities, the official says.

The statistics show that out of the total confirmed cases in Punjab, 32,060 people of 31-45 age group and 29,849 of other age groups have tested positive for the virus so far.

The data further shows the health professionals attending the Covid-19 patients in health facilities are also most vulnerable to the coronavirus due to their exposure to it.

The study shows 23pc positive cases ratio among the health professionals attending the Covid-19 patients in hospitals, the highest ratio so far among any community in Punjab. It also contains data about top 10 districts of Punjab that are reporting the maximum number of new cases. Lahore has reported 54,002, the highest number of confirmed cases among the 10 districts. It is followed by Rawalpindi with 9,087 cases, Multan 7,076, Faisalabad 6,333, Gujranwala 4,071, Gujrat 3,189, Sialkot 2,645, Bahawalpur 2,219, DG Khan 1,852 and Sargodha 1,565 with positive cases.

Meanwhile, according to the new updates of Covid-19 released by the health department on Thursday, 390 more confirmed cases surfaced in the province during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of positive cases to 108,221.

Of the new cases, 124 were reported in Lahore, 63 in Multan and 36 in Rawalpindi. Others were reported in DG Khan, Sheikhupura, Layyah, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Rajanpur, Mianwali, Khanewal, Pakpattan, Faisalabad, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalpur, Sialkot, Toba Tek Singh, Bahawalnagar, Rahim Yar Khan, Okara, Lodhran, Jhang, Vehari, Hafizabad, Jhelum, Sahiwal, Bhakkar and Attock.

According to the official figures released by the health department, the total number of the deaths in Punjab reached 2,438 while the figure in Lahore is 954.

The department looks concerned at the gradual increase in death rate in Punjab. It has directed the heads of the teaching institutions and medical experts to take special measures for timely treatment of the critical patients to bring the death ratio down.

The department says keeping in view the rising trend in the Covid-19 cases, the test ratio has been increased from 10,000 daily to 13,000 in order to assess the real burden of the disease.

During the last 24 hours, it says, the health experts performed 13,545 Covid-19 tests across the province.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2020