The latest COVID-19 data showed a 68% increase in Karachi as the cases on May 1 at 8 am, in comparison to 299 new cases confirmed in Karachi on April 30.

However, insiders said that the spike was due to the fact that expatriates returning from Dubai, Sharjah and Colombo were tested for coronavirus recently and were included in the overall number of people tested in Karachi.

The Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in his routine video message on May 1 said that three flights carrying 483 passengers from abroad had landed at Karachi on April 28 and 29, who were tested for COVID-19 later.

As many as 190 of these passengers, including 92 belonging to Sindh, 56 to Punjab, 24 to KPK and 18 to Balochistan, tested positive for the virus.

Keen observers noted that confirmation of COVID-19 in 40 percent of the examined passengers calls the authorities in Pakistan to maintain strict checking of the expatriates and isolate them from the general population till the time they were not declared free of the virus.

“I don’t know how the infected and non-infected Pakistanis were brought in same flights,” lamented a public health concerned.

Official sources said that six more COVID-19 patients lost their lives in public and private hospitals and at home in Karachi, pushing the tally of deceased patients to 118 for the province.

About Karachi, it was learnt that its South district housed 1,301 COVID positive patients, followed by East (1,059 positive cases), Central (815), West (549), Malir (472) and Korangi (460).

Majority of over 5,250 positive cases are receiving treatments isolated at home, while a good number of them are also admitted to the hospitals, including the Aga Khan University Hospital (55), Peoples Medical College Hopsital, Nawabshah (52), Gadap Hospital (48), PNS Shifa (36), DUHS Ojha Hospital (35), Civil Hospital Karachi (34), Isra Hospital, Hyderabad (34), Bibi Asefa Dental College (36), Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (31), Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (21), Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Hospital (21), Indus Hospital, Korangi (21) and others, according to official sources.

Apart from Karachi, 20 other districts of Sindh also reported new infections on May 1 morning – Hyderabad (19), Jamshoro (1), Badin (1), Shaheed Benazirabad (3), Naushehro Feroz (1), Sujawal (1), Thatta (1), Sanghar (4), Tando Mohammad Khan (5), Ghotki (17), Sukkur (6), Khairpur (2), Larkana (23), Dadu (1), Kambar Shahdadkot (1), Kashmore (3), Mirpurkhas (2), Tharparkar (1), Shikarpur (15) and Jacobabad (11).

In all 3,384 people were tested for the virus, out of which 622 were found infected. The overall COVID-19 infection rate came as 11.55% across the province on May 1–PNFS