ISLAMABAD: The capital has the highest utilisation rate for hospital beds reserved for Covid-19 patients.

Officials of the district administration told Dawn that 362 beds, excluding ventilators, were reserved for patients in 12 hospitals. On Saturday, there were 240 patients admitted to these hospitals with the bed utilisation rate of 66.2pc.

Punjab has 10.1pc utilisation rate as out of the 8,624 beds reserved in 242 hospitals for the infected people, 877 were occupied.

Azad Kashmir has the third highest utilisation rate (8.4pc) with 78 of the 918 beds in 17 hospitals occupied.

In Gilgit-Balitistan, 158 beds have been allocated in 22 hospitals with 11 in use (6.9pc). In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the rate was 6.2pc. The province has reserved 5,440 beds in its 200 hospitals out of which 339 are in use. There are 11,366 beds allocated in 213 hospitals of Sindh with 553 occupied (4.8pc).

Balochistan has a 2.1pc utilisation rate with 24 of the 827 beds reserved in 57 hospitals in use. During the last 24 hours, 7,025 tests were conducted in the city out of which 458 people were found carrying the virus.

The officials said out of the 240 patients admitted to hospitals, 24 were stable, 89 on low flow oxygen and 84 on high flow oxygen. Around 43 were on ventilators.

458 new cases emerge in capital. Ratio of young people infected with virus high

Rawalpindi

More young people have contracted Covid-19 than the old and middle-aged since the outbreak in March, though the death rate was high among the elderly.

According to official data on Rawalpindi district, 3,612 people in the age group of 11 to 40 years have contracted the virus so far, including 1,466 women. Moreover, 471 children were also among the patients — 198 girls and 273 boys. Besides, 1,540 people aged 41 to 50 years were found infected with 690 females and 850 males.

The data showed that 2,507 people aged 51 years and above were infected, including 1,050 women.

As many as 29 people in the age bracket of 11-40 and 67 in the age group of 41 to 50 years died of the virus. The highest mortality rate was among patients aged 51 and above as 259 people have lost their lives in this age group.

A total of 40,384 tests have been conducted in the district since March out of which 8,310 tested positive. On Saturday, 182 people tested positive in different areas of the garrison city.

As many as 1,012 patients are under treatment, including 188 at Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Benazir Bhutto Hospital. Among them, 148 patients belong to Rawalpindi district and 40 are from other districts.

Chakwal

A student in the newly-established University of Chakwal (UoC) tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday.

“A student has claimed that he has contracted coronavirus. I have contacted officials of the health department and a team would visit the university on Monday,” registrar Prof Ghulam Mohammad Jhaggar told Dawn.“The university has more than 4,000 students at present and due to lack of classrooms, as many as 80 students were adjusted in one class room against its capacity of 50,” a faculty member said.

Sources told Dawn the students were not taking precautionary measures as they neither wore masks nor maintained social distancing.

“Even random samplings of students have not been done so far. We fear more cases might emerge if sampling was carried out,” feared another faculty member.

Currently, Chakwal has 25 active cases. “So far 346 cases have been detected in Chakwal while 45 people have lost their lives due to the virus,” Additional Deputy Commissioner General Anbar Gilani, who is also focal person for Covid-19 of Chakwal administration, told Dawn. She added that two private colleges were sealed a couple of days ago for not observing SOPs.

Attock

One confirmed and one suspected patient died in Attock on Saturday.

According to health authorities, the deceased was a former tehsil nazim of Hassanabdal. The 55-year-old had been admitted to the DHQ hospital Attock.

District Health Authority Chief Executive Officer Dr Jawad Elahi said the patient, a resident of Domeil village of Jand tehsil, was brought to the hospital with Covid-19 symptoms. The patient’s test report was awaited when he passed away. He said six more people tested positive on Saturday, raising the tally to 733.

Dr Elahi said there were 63 active patients across the district in which 56 were under home isolation and seven hospitalised. He said five suspected patients were also admitted to the DHQ hospital.

Taxila

Taxila witnessed another surge in Covid-19 cases as 10 more people were found infected. The tally rose to 659 on Saturday.

Deputy District Officer Health Dr Sara Qadeer said most of the cases belonged to urban areas of Wah Cantonment, especially wards 6, 7 and 8, which had remained hotspots of the virus during the previous spell.

She said the number of active patients in the area also increased to 168 and all of them were home isolated. Meanwhile,12 people contracted the virus in Jhelum, CEO Health Dr Waseem Iqbal said on Saturday.

The CEO said 33,187 people have been screened out of which 606 have tested positive. — Additional reporting by Nabeel Anwar Dhakku & Amjad Iqbal

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2020