Karachi's COVID-19 positivity alarmingly jumps over 28%
NIH official says COVID-19 cases were on the rise due to sub-variant of Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2
March 21, 2023
- Countrywide positivity rate stands at only 3%.
- Positivity rate in Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar stands over 10%.
- Positivity rate in Lahore remains at 4.14%.
ISLAMABAD: The COVID-19 positivity rate in Karachi has reached 28.30%, a health authority official told The News, after 30 out of 106 people screened for the viral infection tested positive.
Meanwhile, the countrywide positivity rate stood at only 3% when three out of 100 individuals tested positive for the pandemic.
“COVID-19 positivity rate has started rising in the country since 100 individuals tested positive during the last 24 hours after as many as 3,147 tests were conducted across the country registering 3.18% COVID-19 positivity rate”, an official of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad told The News.
According to statistics shared by the NIH Islamabad, the COVID-19 positivity rate in three major cities — Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar — stood over 10%. The positivity rate jumped to 12.20% in Islamabad, where 25 people tested positive in 205 tests conducted for detecting the virus while Peshawar saw a 14.29% positivity rate with 14 persons testing positive as against 94 tests.
On the other hand, the positivity rate in Lahore remained at 4.14% with 18 new cases of COVID-19 in 435 tests. Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan emerged as COVID-19-free areas as not a single case of COVID-19 was reported there.
Commenting on the situation, an official of the NIH said that COVID-19 cases were on the rise due to a sub-variant of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2.
He added that the spread of the virus was very high but the hospitalisation rate was still very low in the country since only 18 people were under treatment in the ICUs and high dependency units (HDUs) in the country.
He maintained that people showing symptoms of the virus were being screened only, which is why the positivity rate was very high. He said that the government has asked the provinces and centres to increase the number of tests to figure out the actual situation.
