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ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar on Friday said that a special meeting of National Coordination Committee (NCC) will be held on May 31 (Monday) in order to finalise the strategy for tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown restrictions imposed in the country.
Announcing to lift certain curbs, the NCC, in its last meeting on May 7, had decided to extend the lockdown till May 31. However, markets and shopping malls were opened on the orders of the Supreme Court.
Chairing a meeting at National Command and Control Centre (NCOC), the federal minister stressed the need for devising a mechanism of providing the latest information about the availability of beds and ventilators in the hospitals to facilitate the COVID-19 patients.
“This information would facilitate the infected people to get admission in hospitals as per their own preference,” he noted.
The meeting was apprised that sufficient beds and ventilators are available in hospitals across the country for accommodating COVID-19 patients and most of the infected people prefer isolation at homes.
Some reports in local media has earlier suggested that the hospitals in major cities are almost full to the capacity and refusing the patients to admit.
The forum also reviewed the progress on the implementation status of COVID-19 guidelines.
Cases surges past 64,000
With 11931 tests conducted during the last 24 hours, about 2636 new coronavirus cases have surfaced in the country, taking the nation-wide tally to 64,028.
About 22,964 cases have so far been reported in Punjab, 25,309 in Sindh, 8842 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 3,928 in Balochistan and 2,100 in Islamabad.
Meanwhile in Gilgit-Baltistan, the virus has been detected in 658 people and in Azad Jammu Kashmir 227 have fell ill due to the deadly flu. Moreover, with 57 new deaths during the last 24 hours, the nation-wide death tally has risen to 1,317 whereas, 22,305 patients to date have recovered from the virus across the country.
