LAHORE: The federal government’s fresh Covid-19 data analysis on Saturday showed that Punjab had left Sindh and other provinces behind by reporting the highest number of the virus deaths, 2,826, after it added 292 ‘unreported deaths of the province’ to the national data system.

The development came a day after the federal government updated its national data in the light of the Punjab government’s audit that unveiled that 292 Covid-19 deaths across the province remained unreported during the period of March to mid-Nov due to certain reasons. Punjab had requested the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) to update its national record by adding 292 deaths.

A fresh comparative analysis of Covid-19 deaths of the provinces was released by the Punjab government on Saturday. It showed the Punjab province had now reported the highest number of Covid-19 deaths.

According to the countrywide Covid-19 updates, Sindh was persistently reporting highest death toll, followed by Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan since pandemic of the infection in March began.

NCOC says Sindh is still ahead in overall cases

Thursday’s official comparative analysis had showed Sindh’s 2,760 coronavirus patients had died, followed by Punjab 2,519 with a difference of 241 deaths. The KP province had reported third largest death toll 1,318, Balochistan 156 while Islamabad’s death toll was 263, Azad Jammu & Kashmir’s 131 and Gilgit- Baltistan reported 93 deaths.

The NCOC fresh official updates, however, still showed Sindh taking lead by reporting the highest positive cases of the infection.

According to Saturday’s national updates, the number of Sindh’s confirmed cases was 159,752, followed by Punjab’s 113,457, KP’s 43,359, Islamabad’s 25,719, AJK’s 5,806, and GB’s positive cases of the virus were 4,494.

The health and medical experts of the Corona Experts Advisory Group Punjab alerted that the ratio of deaths due to coronavirus in the province was constantly increasing with every passing day during the second spike of the infection. They said on average 15 critical patients of the virus were dying daily in Punjab during second wave of the infection and death toll may increase after the intensive care units (ICUs) of state-run hospitals began to receive a large number of serious patients with shortness of breath.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus claimed lives of 15 more patients in Punjab during the last 24 hours. Of them, nine occurred in Lahore, three in Multan while one each death took place in Gujrat, Kasur and Rawalpindi besides at other places.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2020