By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday reported 1,013 new coronavirus cases, the lowest in last four weeks and 40 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the national tally of cases to 266,092 and fatalities to 5,639. According to the government’s Covid-19 portal, 17,783 tests were conducted in last 24 hours, which led to the emergence of 1,013 new infections. Thus far, 208,030 patients have recuperated from the disease while 52,447 are undergoing treatment, of whom 261 are struggling for their lives on vents at various hospitals across the country. According to the provincial tally of the cases, Sindh has reported 113,553 infections thus far, Punjab 90,444, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 32,243, Balochistan 11,441, Islamabad 14,625, Azad Jammu and Kashmir 1,922 and Gilgit Baltistan 1,868.
Coronavirus cases surpass 14.6 million globally
The number of Coronavirus cases across the world has crossed fourteen point six million while the pandemic has so far claimed more than 600,000 lives so far. The United States is the worse hit, where cases have mounted over three point eight million and death toll reached over 143,000.
In Brazil, over two million cases and more than 79,000 deaths have been reported so far. More than eight point seven million patients have recovered from the disease across the world.
Earlier, the spread of the novel coronavirus has lately been showing a downward trend in Pakistan, which is the main reason for a marked drop in daily testing, a top government official said on Monday. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended Pakistan increase daily testing to above 50,000, but after peaking at 31,000 tests exactly a month ago, the South Asian nation tested less than 20,000 people on Sunday.
“There is no magic number that you have to achieve, what you have to do is a good contact tracing that you are able to find the maximum numbers of exposed persons,” Faisal Sultan, the key person on Covid-19 for Prime Minister Imran Khan, told media.
“The downward trend of the epidemic is the primary reason for the reduced demand in tests.”
Pakistan has registered 265,082 infections and 5,599 deaths.
On July 1, a total of 4,339 people tested positive, and the number dropped to 1,587 on Sunday with an average of 118 deaths a day in late June falling to 47 last week. On Sunday, 31 deaths were reported.
