Pakistan's coronavirus situation improving, except in Sindh: Asad Umar

Islamabad - Minister said that the number of deaths, patients admitted to hospitals and patients on ventilators has gone down., although Karachi remains an issue.

Pakistan's Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar, on Friday said that while the country's overall coronavirus situation was getting better, there was a significant lack of improvement in Sindh, particularly in the provincial capital Karachi.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the Minister said that the the number of deaths, patients admitted to hospitals and patients on ventilators has gone down, Dawn reported.
Crediting this development to citizens following precautionary measures to curb the spread of the virus, Umar said if this continues, the country's situation will continue to improve.
"However, there is only one area where we are not seeing that much improvement, which is in Sindh, especially Karachi," he said.
He maintained that to address this, the National Command and Operation Centre team held a meeting with the provincial chief secretary and the provincial health minister and was working on a way to replicate the results in Sindh as in the rest of the country.
He also urged citizens to remain mindful of the fact that an improvement was only being seen because they were following precautionary measures.
"Don't take this to mean that the pandemic is going away on its own and you can do whatever you want," he cautioned, adding that a lapse in following preventive measures could cause the number of cases to rise again.
"I had earlier warned that our cases could reach 1.2 million by July end if we don't take action or follow preventive measures. But because people are following precautionary measures and the administration is also taking action (things have been improving)," Umar added.
On Friday, Pakistan reported 221,896 Covid-19 cases and 4,551 deaths from the disease.

• Pakistan