Islamabad Reaches Above 66% COVID-19 Bed Utilization as Government Stays Rigid Over Lockdown Decisions
ISLAMABAD: The capital territory has reported the highest COVID-19 bed utilization rate across the whole country.
District administration officials provided data showing that a total of 362 beds were set aside for COVID-19 patients in twelve hospitals in Islamabad. On Saturday, 240 of these 362 beds were occupied. That’s a whopping 66.2% utilization rate.
Ministers are aware of the situation but have failed to implement measures to bring the situation under control. Mr. Asad Umer, the federal minister for planning tweeted,
Increase in covid patients on ventilators in last 15 days: peshawar 200%, multan 200%, karachi 148%, Lahore 114%, Islamabad 65%. Multan and Isb covid ventilators capacity utilization 70%. For political leaders to send a message that corona is not a threat is threatening lives
— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) November 22, 2020
In contrast, the province of Punjab has 10.1% utilization rate. 877 out of the set aside 8,624 beds were reserved.
Kashmir ranks third with a utilization rate of 8.4%. 78 out of the 918 beds were occupied. Gilgit-Balitistan has a utilization rate of 6.9% as 11 out of 158 COVID-19 allocated beds were occupied.
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In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the rate stood at 6.2%. The province has over 5,400 beds and 339 are in use. The province of Sindh has the greatest number of beds set aside for COVID patients with over 11,300 beds set aside, out of which 553 are occupied. This is about 4.8% of the capacity.
Balochistan has 827 beds allocated to COVID patients, however, only 24 were occupied with a 2.1% utilization rate.
Ever Rising Infection Rate
Over the last 24 hours, 7025 tests were conducted in the city out of which 458 people were found carrying the virus.
The officials said that out of the 240 patients admitted to hospitals, 24 were stable, 89 on low flow oxygen, and 84 on high flow oxygen.
There are reports of more young people contracting the virus than elderly people. The government is adamant that there is no need for a lockdown. Moreover, the educational institutions are mimicking the dogmatic stance of the administration and are not agreeing to shift the educational activities online.
Ministers for education from all the provinces agreed to a meeting of education secretaries and officials where the future would be decided. Sadly, half the secretaries and ministers were not available at the time and when they did become available, no decision was made whatsoever.
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The negligence on the part of officials can be termed as criminal as the life of youth is at stake. Moreover, hospitals are reporting increasing infection rate among the youth and SOPs are not being followed across the country.
#Shutdownallinstitutions was the top trend on twitter in Pakistan on Sunday morning.
A tweet showcases the following, or the lack thereof, of SOPs across the country.
This is situation of our university buses no one follow Sop’s. Many students have tested Covid. PPlz shut down all institutions including all Universities. This is matter of our lifes. #Shutdownallinstitutions pic.twitter.com/rgWhOSbmks
— Shakeel Akram (@Shakeel03542982) November 21, 2020
