Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief dies of COVID-19

Islamabad: Nasir Khan Durrani, former Inspector General of Police (IGP) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), has died of COVID-19. He was 64.

Nasir Durrani had been on ventilator at the Mayo Hospital in Lahore for over a week after developing complications from COVID-19.

During his tenure as the IGP of the province, Durrani was instrumental in reforming the provincial police and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) attributed these police reforms to its second term in the 2018 general elections.

Prime Minister Imran Khan in a tweet offered his condolences to the family of the former IGP and called him an outstanding officer.

Lahore hospitals’ ICUs reach maximum limit

All the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of the main public sector hospitals of Lahore treating COVID-19 patients have reached their capacity. Emergency departments and isolation units of the Jinnah Hospital, Services Hospital, Mayor and Nawaz Sharif Hospital are fully occupied and are now either referring or refusing new COVID-19 patients for shortage of beds/ventilators, said a senior official of the Punjab Health Department.

Presently, 250 COVID-19 patients are on ventilators and 700 are admitted in “High Oxygen” wards, he said.

We have supplied 100 more ventilators to these hospitals during the past week to accommodate COVID-19 patients but they too are occupied now. If the situation continues to worsen, the Punjab health department will be forced to seek the centre’s help in this regard, he further said.

137 deaths recorded in 24 hours

Pakistan on Tuesday reported another 137 deaths and 5,445 new cases of COVID-19 after around 68,000 tests in the last 24 hours.

According to the official data released by the Ministry of National Health Services, the country’s COVID-19 positivity rate remained 8 per cent while the number of active cases has jumped to 83,296 from the last day’s figure of 82,276.

With these latest figures, Pakistan’s total number of cases has surged to 766,882 and death toll stands at 16,453.

Two-week travel ban on India

As a precautionary measure and over fears of a new variant of COVID-19, Pakistan has placed a travel ban on all incoming passengers from India for a period of two weeks.

The National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) took this decision at a meeting chaired by the Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiative Asad Umar and placed India on the list of ‘Category C’ countries for two weeks.

A review meeting will be held on April 21 to assess the situation, the NCOC further stated.

In this category, there will be a ban on passengers coming from India through air and land routes.

As per COVID-19 travel guidelines, passengers from the countries in ‘C Category’ are restricted and allowed as per guidelines by the NCOC.