LAHORE: The health officials and the medical experts have said the frequent political gatherings in major cities of Punjab has caused increase in the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths across the province.

They warned the figures would further increase if preventive measures are not taken by the public in accordance with the guidelines issued by Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Secretary Mohammad Usman. Senior officer-bearers of the two health bodies formed for the prevention of coronavirus briefed the media persons on the Covid-19 situation in the province on Wednesday.

Mr Usman said the overall positivity rate of infection in Punjab is 3.62; it’s 5 in Lahore and 2.67 in Multan. He said the total number of positive cases in Punjab was 128,673 after 535 more patients tested positive for the virus during the last 24 hours. He said the Punjab government had performed 2,223,422 Covid-19 tests while clarifying that health teams were conducting tests of symptomatic patients.

He said 18 labs were performing Covid-19 tests in Punjab while two more were being established in southern part of the province.

Answering a question, Mr Usman said lockdown had been imposed in 63 areas of Lahore, 20 areas of Rawalpindi and six localities of Gujrat.

He said educational institutes were opened in phases. In each phase, random sampling was conducted and the results in the sixth phase were disturbing due to which the institutes were again closed down as a preventive measure.

Mr Usman said the PCR test was considered the gold standard for the early diagnosis of Covid-19. He said the department had initiated an inquiry regarding false testing of Covid-19 and action would be taken against all those who are found involved in the scam.

Mayo Hospital Chief Executive Prof Dr Asad Aslam said the total operational beds in Lahore are 2,500 -- 502 are in high dependency units and 178 are designated for the patients requiring ventilators.

“We have sufficient amount of arrangements to tackle the second wave of Covid-19,” he said, adding Pakistan’s efforts to curtail virus during the first wave was lauded the world over.He said there was no surety about re-infection of Covid-19. However, few cases internationally have been mentioned/reported once in a blue moon, he said.

Prof Dr Mahmood Shaukat said the media had played a vital role during the first wave of Covid and asked the media persons to show the same spirit during the second spike of the virus which was much lethal in respect of death rate.

He said the vaccine was under trial in Pakistan and the regulatory authorities would give a final decision regarding its preparation and launch.

“Covid-19 cases increased in Punjab due to frequent and massive political, religious and social gatherings across the province,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2020