Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday reported achieving the landmark figure of more than 30 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered across the country, yet the coronavirus situation in the country is described as alarming, as for the first time in three months, the daily tally of cases has gone beyond 5,000.
According to the National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC), against 56,965 tests conducted during the last 24 hours 5,026 persons were diagnosed with COVID-19, which is the highest number of daily cases in the country since April 29 when 5,112 infections were reported.
The positivity rate, 8.82 per cent, has also been the highest and the number of active cases jumped from 66,287 on Saturday to 69,756 on Sunday, the NCOC further reported.
After 5,026 new cases of COVID-19, the overall national tally surged to 1,034,837, while 62 more COVID-19-related fatalities raised the country’s death toll from the disease to 23,422.
Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiative Asad Umar who is also Chairman of the NCOC while addressing a press conference along with Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan cautioned that the fourth wave of COVID-19 was spreading fast in the country and the public needed to strictly follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in order to avoid getting caught.
Dr Faisal Sultan said daily 480 to 500 COVID-19 new patients were reporting at hospitals which is building pressure on our health system.
Sindh records highest number of cases, casualties
According to a breakdown of the provincial status of coronavirus, Sindh with 2,772 new cases and 30 deaths during the last 24 hours is ahead of other provinces and the positivity rate in the province is described above 25 per cent.
The province is already under partial lockdown and the provincial government has urged the people to spend most of their time during the upcoming week at home.
The public and the private offices have also been directed to keep the staff at the minimum level and only those industries are allowed to operate where workers have been vaccinated.
As compared with Sindh, Punjab reported 709 cases and 18 deaths in the last 24 hours. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 591 cases were reported while 6 people died due to COVID-19, the NCOC data further reveals.
A week marked by record numbers of vaccination
Asad Umar in a tweet described the outgoing week ‘a week marked by new records’ with regard to administering the maximum number of doses of COVID-19 vaccination.
“All 6 days this week were a record. 934,000 vaccinations yesterday . In last 6 days 5 million vaccinations were done,” said Asad Umar in a tweet on Sunday.
Pakistan has crossed 30 million vaccinations. The first 10 million took 113 days. The second 28 days and the 3rd only 16 days. Pace has rapidly increased, the minister further said.
According to the NCOC, a total number of 30.590 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered across the country with 934,717 only in last 24 hours.
Source: Gulf News
BDST: 1930 HRS, AUG 4, 2021
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