Pakistan records highest daily Covid-19 deaths since last June

ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan is struggling to contain the third wave of Covid-19, the country reported 5,050 new Covid-19 cases over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 721,018, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Sunday.

Sindh has been the worst hit with 268,750 cases followed by Punjab where 248,438 people have been tested positive, the NCOC said in a statement.

A total of 114 people died across the country during the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 15,443, the official statement said, adding that 4,143 patients are being treated in hospitals across the country.

The government launched the vaccination for the general public in March, starting with older people. It is currently offering free doses to frontline healthcare workers and people over the age of 50, but the drive has thus far been slow.

The authorities are also grappling with a high degree of vaccination hesitancy among the people, even among health workers.

CHINA SAYS SHOTS’ EFFECTIVENESS LOW:

The government has so far relied on donations and purchases from China. However, in a rare admission of the weakness of its vaccines, a top Chinese disease control official said that their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to give them a boost.

Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control (CCDC), Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.

Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses in other countries, including Pakistan. “It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunisation process,” Gao said.

The effectiveness rate of a coronavirus vaccine from Sinovac, a Chinese developer that produced the CanSino vaccine, at preventing symptomatic infections has been found to be as low as 50.4 per cent by researchers in Brazil. By comparison, the vaccine made by Pfizer has been reported to be 97 per cent effective.

Beijing has yet to approve any foreign vaccines for use in China, where the coronavirus emerged in late 2019.

MESSAGES AND MEASURES TO CURTAIL PANDEMIC:

Urging the people to strictly follow standard operating procedures to stop the spread of the virus, Prime Minister Imran Khan has said on more than one occasion that the third wave of Covid-19 is extremely dangerous in comparison to the previous two waves.

“We have so far been protecting our people. We are not imposing a complete lockdown or closing our factories. We are only imposing minor restrictions so that this wave does not spread rapidly. But if this spreads, it will have a very negative impact and we will be forced to take steps,” he said in a recent interactive session with the public.

To counter the deadly third wave, the authorities have recently taken several measures by banning all kinds of both indoor and outdoor mass gatherings, closing educational institutions in some areas of the country, and suspending inter-provincial transport two days a week from April 10 to 25.

Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, who also heads the NCOC, said last week that increased restrictions, broader lockdowns and strong enforcement of standard operating procedures (SOPs) have started showing their effect.

The rising trend of positivity rate has been flattened, but the number of critical patients and mortality will stay at high levels for some time due to the momentum of last two weeks, he had said.

Meanwhile, the vaccination campaign is in full swing, with authorities urging eligible citizens to get themselves vaccinated against the disease.

So far, more than 1 million people have been vaccinated, and the total number of people who have registered themselves for vaccination is now over 2 million, according to data.

Government officials and health experts believe that the variant of Covid-19 initially discovered in Britain has been behind the surge in the number of infections in the country.

“The new variant seemed to be more contagious and deadly, and the only way we can control it is to shut all kinds of activities that may play role in the spread of the disease,” Ejaz Ahmad Khan, an infectious disease specialist at the Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad, told Xinhua.

He said that the government is trying hard to control the situation, but the cooperation of the people is also very important. “Solely the government cannot take control of this fatal disease without our help.”

With additional input from The Associated Press, Xinhua