Coronavirus Update: Karachi relatively calm

By Mukhtar Alam
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

After staggering number of high cases during the past few days, Karachi saw a significant decrease in its daily reporting of new COVID-19 cases on April 13 when the authorities confirmed one more related death, taking the death toll to 30 overall in Sindh. 

According to official data, Karachi reported only 41 new coronavirus positive cases on April 13 against an average of 76 per day since April 10 at 8 am, a decrease of 56 % in the cases compared to 93 new cases of April 12.

This was the second day when no new infection case was shown from the interior of Sindh in the official data. 

As many as 531 samples were tested during the day in the province, out of which 41 were found positive. 

Sindh overall has tested 13,849 people including expatriates, pilgrims and cases suspected of local transmissions during a period of February 26 and April 13 (8am), out of which 1,452, including 1,106 cases of local transmission have been found positive for coronavirus. 

According to a surveillance report of the health department, updated on April 12, East District of Karachi Division has reported the maximum (205) cases so far, followed by South (191), Central (157), West (85), Malir (74) and Korangi (60). Karachi reported a total 819 cases since February 26 when the first coronavirus case was reported in Sindh. 

The official summary of cases revealed that all 41 tested positive in last 24 hours were those who contracted the virus locally. 

A 64-year-old corona positive woman died at Karachi, while 30 people, including 23 pilgrims of Sukkur, recovered from the disease. At Sukkur, in all, 274 pilgrims were tested positive, 251 were still under treatment, while another 172 members of tableeghi jamat were under treatment at Hyderabad. 

At Karachi, 147 out of 937 infected people have recovered while 28 lost their lives, according to the official data.