938 new COVID-19 cases surface in Sindh 

KARACHI: Syed Murad Ali Shah, Chief Minister of Sindh, shared the daily COVID-19 and Omicron variant situation, said 21 more cases of Omicron variant and 938 of COVID-19 were detected, and unfortunately, three more patients died, lifting the death toll to 7681. 

Syed Murad Ali Shah commented that 24 Omicron samples were analysed on January 6 and 7, with 21 being detected as Omicron positive, bringing the total to 328, representing an 87.5 per cent current detection rate. According to him, 14 of the 21 new cases have been identified in District East, three in District Central, one in District Malir, and three cases were of residents of other provinces.

He said that the 87.5 per cent detection rate was high and showed a fast-spreading trend. Therefore people had to be careful. 

Giving details of the daily report, Syed Murad Ali Shah said that three more patients of COVID-19 died overnight, lifting the death toll to 7,681, constituting a 1.6 per cent death rate. 

He added that 14,868 samples were tested, which detected 938 cases that constituted a 6.3 per cent current detection rate. He added that so far, 7,242,318 tests had been conducted against which 485,422 cases were diagnosed as positive, of the 96.5 per cent or 468,665 patients had recovered.

He acknowledged that currently, 9,076 patients were under treatment. Of the 8,817 who were in home isolation, 110 were at isolation centres and 149 at different health facilities. 

He added that the condition of 142 patients was stated to be critical, including 11 who were shifted to ventilators. Syed Murad Ali Shah claimed that out of 938 new cases, 759 had been detected from Karachi, including 281 from District East, 246 District South, 149 District Central, 55 District Korangi, 19 District West and 9 District Malir. Hyderabad had 27, Thatta 24, Tando Allahyar 15, Nausheroferoze 14, Matiari 13, Sujawal 11, Jamshoro 10, Dadu 7, Tharparkar 6, Ghotki and Shaheed Benazirabad 5 each, Jacobabad, Umerkot, Sanghar and Larkana 4 each, Badin and Mirpurkhas 3 each, Khairpur and Sukkur 2 each and Shikarpur had 1. 

Syed Murad Ali Shah, who chose to share vaccination data, stated that 30,291,406 vaccinations were administered up to January 6th and that 179,475 vaccines were inoculated in the last 24 hours – a total of 30,470,881 vaccines were administered, accounting for 55.20 per cent of the vaccine eligible population.