Punjab procures 100 ventilators as hospitals strain under influx of Covid-19 patients

Punjab Health Minister Yasmin Rashid has said that most of the ventilator machines are now occupied in the hospitals and the demand is increasing as there is a persistent spike in coronavirus cases.

The health minister termed the third wave of Covid-19 as deadlier and said that government will be forced to impose lockdown people continue to violations coronavirus Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs).

“Recommendations have been finalized for complete lockdown in eight cities of Punjab including Lahore for 15 days,” she said.

Dr. Yasmin confirmed that 29 patients succumbed to the virus in Lahore during the past 24 hours including 14 at Mayo Hospital, 6 at Jinnah Hospital, 4 at General Hospital, 3 at Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS) and one at a private hospital.

Punjab’s provincial capital Lahore has become the Covid-19 hotspot as positivity ration in the city stands at 20%. On the other hand, police registered 704 cases against people on violating Covid-19 restrictions.

Pakistan is presently experiencing the third wave of coronavirus which is said to be deadlier and more contagious than the previous two waves.

According to National Command and Operations Center (NCOC), around 4,584 cases of coronavirus were reported while 58 people succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 15,501.

The total number of confirmed cases reached to 725,602. As many as 6, 34,835 patients have recovered from the disease with 4,201 critical cases.

In Punjab, the number of patients swelled to 250,459 in the province with 6,988 causalities.