Nearly 100 employees of Islamabad airport contract COVID-19

ISLAMABAD: The fifth wave of pandemic has started affecting the officers and staffers of Islamabad airport as nearly 100 employees were found to be infected with COVID-19, ARY News reported on Friday.

Nearly 100 employees of Islamabad International Airlines have contracted COVID-19 including the Omicron variant detected with some officers of the ATC control tower, sources told ARY News.

The infected employees included senior officers including director, joint director, assistant director and ATC control.

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It is feared that more staffers will contract coronavirus due to a lack of prevention arrangements at the Islamabad airport. It was learnt that thousands of passengers were undergoing COVID-19 detection tests at the airport.

The Islamabad airport is also crowded with passengers these days due to a complete restoration of flight operations that increased the reservation of the airport officials.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan has recorded 7,678 COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, the highest single-day rise since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.

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According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), a total of 59,343 samples were tested, out of which 7,678 turned out to be positive at the positivity rate of 12.93 per cent as compared to Thursday’s 11.55%.

With the emergence of fresh cases, the countrywide tally of cases has jumped to 1,353,479.

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The deaths have also recorded a surge as 23 more patients of COVID-19 succumbed to the viral disease in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 29,065. The number of critical patients rose to 961.

Pakistan has conducted 24,415,716 tests so far to diagnose the deadly virus and 1,266,479 people have regained their health including 814 in the past 24 hours.