Punjab issues 2nd Corona wave alert as cases surge

From Abid Usman

LAHORE: Punjab government has issued an official threat over concerns of a second wave of COVID-19 in the province as a number of provincial ministers and bureaucrats have contracted the virus in the last couple of days.
According to details, the Punjab government has issued an official threat over concerns that rising violations of the COVID-19 SOPs in the province could result in a second wave of the virus in the country.
According to sources, the alert was issued as a number of ministers and provincial bureaucrats have contracted COVID-19 in the last few days. The ministers who remain infected from coronavirus included Mian Aslam Iqbal, Hussain Jahania Gardezi, and Aleem Khan.
The officials who have contracted the infection included chairman planning and development and secretary Punjab Assembly. Earlier in the day, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said that the active cases of COVID-19 have increased up to 2016 with the emergence of 130 new infections and two deaths during the last 24 hours. CM Usman Buzdar said in a statement that 2,283 patients have died of coronavirus so far, whereas, 11,672 tests were conducted within one day. 97,002 out of 101,301 patients have recovered from the virus, he added.
Meanwhile, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Friday that six more patients of coronavirus lost their lives during the past 24 hours, lifting the death toll to 2574 and 225 more cases emerged when 8429 tests were conducted raising the tally to 141,474.
In a statement issued here on Friday, the CM said that six more patients died overnight lifting the death toll to 2574 that constituted 1.8 percent death rate. CM said that 8,429 tests were conducted against which 225 new Covid cases were detected that came to 2.6 percent current detection rate. He added that so far 1,519,134 tests have been conducted which diagnosed 141,474 cases, of them 95 percent or 134,494, including 650 overnight. Murad Ali said that currently 4406 patients were under treatment, of them 4164 in home isolation, five at isolation centers and 237 in different hospitals. He added that the condition of 168 patients was stated to be critical, including 20 shifted to ventilators.