PESHAWAR: Coronavirus has claimed 29 more lives and infected 495 others in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as authorities continue to take action against violators of the precautionary measures, especially Mardan, a high-risk district.

In Mardan, where positivity rate for Covid-19 swabs rose to more than 17 per cent, calls were made from mosques through loudspeakers by the administration to ask people to stay home to avoid getting infected.

Peshawar lost 15 persons to the virus during the last 24 hours, making its tally of fallen people 1,804 so far, according to a report released by health department.

Mardan records 17pc positivity rate

Three persons died of the pandemic in Dera Ismail Khan, two each in Swat and Mardan, one each in Bannu, Kohat, Bajaur, Malakand, Upper Dir, Charsadda and Nowshera.

The report said that the province had currently 9,666 active cases while 111,669 patients had recovered including the 527 people, who recovered from the infectious ailment on Monday. It said that a total of 5,326 tests were conducted in the province.

Mardan reported 59 new patients, Upper Dir 47, Mohmand 46, Peshawar and Kurram 39 each, Nowshera 33, Buner and Swat 28 each, Kohat and Orakzai 24 each and Dera Ismail Khan reported 18 new cases.

The district administration in Peshawar, which has recorded 1,804 deaths of the total 3,644 in the province, continued to seal shops and penalise violators of the standard operating procedure.

In Mardan, the administration made announcements from mosques through loudspeakers, urging the people to stay home as the third wave of the virus was lethal.

The officials of tehsil municipal administration made announcements in the markets and warned the traders of dire consequences if they didn’t abide by the precautionary measures.

The residents were told that those not adhering to the SOPs would be sent to jail.

Positivity for coronavirus swabs is 17.4 per cent in Mardan, 14.9 per cent in Peshawar, 12.3 per cent in Swabi, 9.9 per cent in Charsadda, 7.8 per cent in Swat and 6.6 per cent in Abbottabad.

Overall positivity in the province is 7.4 per cent, according to a report compiled by World Health Organisation.

A total of 1,349 confirmed patients of coronavirus have currently been admitted to various hospitals. Of them, 490 are on low flow oxygen, 789 are on high flow and 70 on ventilators and are critical.

Health officials in Peshawar said that they looked towards the administration to ensure compliance of precautionary measures by the people as the third wave of the pandemic was more dangerous than the previous two waves.

The department has allocated 2,385 beds to Covid-19 patients in different hospitals of the province of which more than 1,000 are presently empty.

The people have been asked to pay heed to the SOPs including wearing masks, keeping social distancing and observe hand hygiene.

“If the people continue to ignore government’s calls for following SOPs, then the situation can become similar to that of June-July last year when the hospitals were overburdened and there was no room to admit patients,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2021