Coronavirus Update: Relaxed situation at Karachi hospitals

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

All the designated COVID-19 hospitals in Karachi witnessed a relaxed situation in term of their intensive care unit (ICU) beds’ occupancy on July 31 when authorities confirmed 11 more related fatalities in the province, against 20 reported on July 30, with 489 new infections during the last 24 hours. 

Karachi reported 244 (50%) of the total new cases in Sindh on July 31, against its daily infection rate of 52% on July 30.

Of the 409 ICU beds reserved for COVID-19 patients in Karachi, only 147 (35%) were occupied by patients including 63 those put on ventilators.

However, the only child care exclusive hospital, National Institute of Child Health (NICH) continued working under pressure as its all the four ICU beds were in use on July 31 too.

On the other hand, as of July 31, all testing laboratories, except LUMHS, Essa Lab, Advanced Lab, Al Khidmat Laboratory and Bahria Town Lab and the government run laboratory in Larkana, conducted COVID-19 tests below their sanctioned capacity. 

Against the collective capacity of 14,920 tests, 11,555 samples were taken up, out of which 839 tested positive. On July 31, the new infection rate was one percent less than 5% on July 30.

The Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, in his routine coronavirus status statement, said that the overall number of fatalities had reached to 2,220. However, no district wise breakdown of new fatalities was given in the statement issued by his secretariat.

In the meantime, an official report updated on July 31 said that in all 20 people died during the last 24 hours in Sindh with Karachi (17), Sujawal (1), Hyderabad (1) and Ghotki (1).

In all 110,738 COVID-19 patients have recovered, while there were 8,081 active patients in Sindh on July 31, including 476 at hospitals, out of which 320 were stated to be in critical condition.

Apart from Karachi’s 244 new infections, Sukkur registered 23 cases, followed by Ghotki (20), Hyderabad (15), Tando Allahyar (15), Naushero Feroze (15), Umerkot (15), Badin (12), Kambar Shahdadkot (9), Matiari (10), Shikarpur (6), Shaheed Benazirabad (5), Tando Mohammad Khan (5), Mirpurkhas (3), Sanghar (3), Jacobabad (3) and Jamshoro (3).

Surprisingly, the federal government portal was not updated on August 1 morning. The last time the dashboard numbers were updated at 9.35 am on July 31, and as such any consolidated COVID-19 status and authenticated tests results released by provinces on July 31 were not available there.