LAHORE: The Covid-19 infection is spreading at an ‘alarming’ rate in government schools all over the province.

An official report unveiled that 1,004 schoolchildren of nursery to matriculation class tested positive for the virus during the last two months with a higher percentage than reported during the first wave of the infection in Punjab.

According to the report, hundreds of health teams were dispatched by the Punjab government to the government schools across the province where 317,918 children underwent testing procedures.

The health teams performed tests of children in five phases starting from Sept 15 to Nov 22.

A comparative study concluded on Monday showed the positivity percentage for the coronavirus among children increased persistently during the last two months or so.

According to the report, in the first phase of testing from Sept 15 to Sept 27 the positivity ratio of the virus among the Punjab’s government school children was recorded 0.21 per cent that later increased gradually in next phases and shot up to 0.59pc in the last one.

1,004 children of various classes contracted virus in last two months; positivity rate among medics reaches 23pc

In the phase-II [Sept 28 to Oct 10], the percentage was 0.20, in the third phase from Oct 12 to Oct 25 it was 0.35pc.

During phase-IV [Oct 26 to Nov 8] the positivity ratio among children was 0.41pc which later increased in the last phase from Nov 9 to Nov 22 to 0.59pc.

The report stated that of the total children from nursery to the matriculation class, 151 tested positive for the virus in Rawalpindi, 115 in Gujranwala, 104 in Bahawalpur, 85 in Gujrat, 79 in Nankana Sahib, 45 in Lahore, 43 in Jhelum, 37 in Layyah, 30 in Sargodha, 28 in Mianwali, 26 in Toba Tek Singh, 24 in Faisalabad, 22 each in Multan and Okara, 21 in Pakpattan, 20 in Lodhran’s government schools, etc.

Meanwhile, with 13 more deaths during the last 24 hours, the total number of active cases also increased to 13,000 in Punjab, showing a persistent surge in infected patients.

The official figures showed that as many as 10,145 new confirmed cases were reported during the first 23 days of November and this [figure] was 22,000 during the same period of July when the infection was at its peak in Punjab.

Similarly, 249 critical patients died during the first 23 days of this month across the province.

According to the official update released on Monday, 498 more people contracted Covid during the last 24 hours in Punjab, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 114,508 and of death tally to 2,861.

Of the [new] confirmed cases, 241 were reported from Lahore, 85 from Rawalpindi, 41 from Multan, 20 from Bahawalpur, 13 from Sargodha, etc.

The virus continued to hunt the health professionals who were exposed to the infection for attending Covid patients as 25 doctors of Jinnah Hospital Lahore have been tested positive for the virus during the last a couple of days.

A spokesperson for the health department said the positivity ratio among health professionals in Punjab reached 23pc.

He said the number of total tests performed in Punjab so far reached 1,862,260 after the teams conducted 12,607 more tests during the last 24 hours.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2020