ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said on Saturday that the spike in the cases of the Omicron-driven fifth wave of Covid-19 has slightly fallen. But at the same time, he made it clear that it cannot be called a declining trend, saying that the graph of cases has just straightened.

“After a sudden spike in cases, the graph has straightened, but we cannot say that the wave has declined. It has happened due to five reasons or steps taken by the government from the platform of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC),” he said while talking to Dawn.

“The first reason is that every pandemic has a natural cycle and it declines after some time. Other factors are steps taken by NCOC, such as ban on indoor weddings that had become a major cause of the spread of virus. Other reasons included segregated classes in educational institutions and curbs in other sectors, such as transport,” he said.

28 people lose their battle against Covid

The fifth step, he added, was the vaccination of a large number of people which helped in reducing the cases of hospitalisation.

The data issued by NCOC showed that as many as 6,137 more infections and 28 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. As many as 1,649 patients were on critical care and the national positivity was 9.67 per cent.

As many as 10 cities reported over 10pc positivity — Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Swabi, Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad and Mirpur.

A total of 182,396,048 dos­es of vaccine have been adm­i­nistered. As many as 108,173,867 people have rec­eived at least a single dose of vaccine. About 84,731,497 people have become fully vaccinated. Moreover, over 2.7 million have been inoculated with booster doses.

Meanwhile, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl secretary general Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri has been admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) due to complications in his gallbladder and pancreas.

According to party sources, Mr Haideri is under treatment of Cardiologist Dr Naeem Malik. Initially, he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Cardiac Centre, but by the evening he was shifted to a private ward of the hospital.

Party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Balochistan National Party-Mengal chairman Sardar Akhtar Mengal and other political leaders phoned Mr Haideri to inquire after his health.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2022