From Abid Usman
LAHORE: A summary sent to Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has estimated 670,000 could be affected by the coronavirus in Lahore alone, media reported on Monday.
Captain (retd) Muhammad Usman, Secretary, Primary & Secondary Healthcare Department said that the summary forwarded to the chief minister on May 15 contained results of samples collected from hotspots, residences and offices in Lahore.
As per the summary, 6% of the total samples collected tested positive for COVID-19. In some towns, samples’ results stated that 14.7% of the samples came back with positive results. The report said that there wasn’t a single area in Lahore or a qasba where the infection had not reached.
Members of the Technical Working Group — who carried out the exercise in the city by collecting samples to gauge how fast the disease can spread in the city— have recommended imposing a complete lockdown in the city for four weeks and quarantining persons aged above 50 years. The group has also advised the government to declare it essential for people to stay inside their homes and not venture out unnecessarily.An alarming summary presented by the Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department to Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar almost two weeks ago had revealed that “no workplace and residential area of any town is disease-free” in the provincial capital, and that total virus cases in the city are estimated at around 0.7 million, it emerged on Monday.
Advising the chief minister to immediately enforce a complete lockdown for “at least four weeks”, the summary, a copy of which is available with media, said a smart lockdown would not work since all areas of the city had been impacted by the disease, adding that asymptomatic cases became the “main source of infection and local transmission” in the metropolis.
“Any subsequent decision of lifting, relaxing or doing away with lockdown measures should be taken after reviewing the results of smart sampling conducted with regular intervals till the final tapering down of the virus,” it had recommended.
The summary signed by Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Secretary Muhammad Usman and dated May 15 listed the results of a “smart sampling project” to “detect and determine the spread of Covid-19 and to structure and guide [the department’s] response towards its containment”.
Under the exercise, randomised targeted sampling (RTS) and smart sampling (SS) were carried out; the former was to determine the prevalence of the disease in occupational sectors that remained functional during the lockdown, while the latter was to understand community spread.
After these exercises, the report said, it could be estimated that Lahore, which has a population of over 11 million, has around 670,800 coronavirus cases. But as of June 1, the entire Punjab province has officially reported just 26,240 infections and 497 fatalities.
Analysing the data from various hotspots including workplaces and residential areas, the summary noted “a worrisome picture of Covid-19 prevalence” in communities, with 5.18pc infection rate for RTS and 6.01pc for SS.
