Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid Tuesday said false news was being spread regarding the condition of hospitals and the number coronavirus patients in Punjab.

Addressing a press conference, Dr Yasmin said that the data from the summary sent to the chief minister consisted of extrapolated figures.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore, she said: "We were told to conduct swab sampling by the cabinet committee and the working group had experts from different universities. They carried out 31,000 sampling, 21,000 of which were conducted in Lahore."

She said that the data shows that this was a broad-based sample, highlighting the number of people that may be infected.

The Health Minister said there were 251 critical patients of coronavirus in Punjab and the highest number of patients has been from Lahore and Rawalpindi.

She added that Lahore has more than 12000 patients and therefore the government has decided to only keep those patients in the hospitals that are in critical condition.

Regarding the recent summary sent to CM Office by the Health Department, the health minister said that those number are just estimated figures based on random sampling and smart data analysis but if the public follows the required SOPs then the spread of virus can be controlled.

Dr Yasmin said that a poor country like Pakistan cannot afford to have a prolonged lockdown.

"Experts were of the opinion we extend the lockdown. (But) you can only distribute ration for two to three months."

She added that the lesson citizens should learn from this is to take precautionary measures. "You have no idea who has Covid-19, you have to save yourself. The more precautions you take, the better."

It is pertinent to mention that the Primary and Secondary Health Care Department had submitted a summary to CM Buzdar warning the provincial government about the total number of patients in Lahore are 670,000 therefore strict lockdown has to be implemented in the city.

The exponential rise in coronavirus cases and causalities has been observed since Eid ul Fitr holidays when the lockdown was eased for giving a small relief to the already fragile economy. In the last 24 hours, 1610 new cases were registered in Punjab.