Islamabad: The second wave of COVID-19 has claimed 176 lives in the last two days in Pakistan. It is the highest number of casualties in a period of two days since the outbreak of the second wave. According to the health authorities, the virus situation is far from improving in the country.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan, while chairing an online meeting on ‘Reinforcing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) during the second wave of COVID-19’ said, “We are passing through the same situation that we had faced in June.”
Earlier, the highest number of deaths was reported on June 15 when the first wave had reached its peak, claiming 124 lives in a day and making the June 8’s toll of 90 deaths the second highest.
New cases
After these 176 deaths in two days, Pakistan has recorded 9,080 deaths on Thursday while 2,545 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in last 24 hours taking the total number of cases to 448,552.
According to Sultan, COVID-19 has even reached those areas which remained unaffected during the first wave of the pandemic.
“The burden on the hospitals is also increasing rapidly and we have increased their capacity. “I request the masses to strictly adhere to the SOPs,” he said while chairing the meeting.
According to the National Command & Control Operation Centre (NCOC), Pakistan witnessed 319 deaths from December 7 to December 13.
Of these fatalities, 180 were from three big cities namely Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. These cities have turned out to be hotspots of coronavirus and even earlier, from November 30 to December 6, out of 299 deaths 169 were reported from there.
PTCL’s President, senior reporter die of COVID-19
The latest victims include CEO and president of the state-run telecom provider, Pakistan Telecommunication Communication Company (PTCL) Rashid Khan and a senior journalist and teacher of mass communication Tariq Mehmood Malik.
The former was also heading the mobile phone service provider Ufone while the latter was a member of the National Press Club and also took classes at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML).
They were hospitalized a few days earlier after their condition deteriorated and they felt difficulty in breathing. On Thursday, however, they breathed their last leaving their families and colleagues in grief.
Health workers first to get vaccine
Vice Chancellor of the National Health Services Academy Dr Asad Hafeez meanwhile said it would be a great success if Pakistan could get in the near future vaccine for its 500,000 frontline health workers such as doctors, paramedics and officials and employees of the health department.
However he ruled out any possibility for administering a vaccine to the general public in the next six months. “Our best efforts are to procure vaccines first for the frontline health workers and then senior citizens,” he said.
The Federal Cabinet earlier this month had decided that COVID-19 vaccine would be first administered to the frontline health workers, senior citizens and people suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
