ICT records weekly positivity rate at 1.01pc, lowest this year

Islamabad:The third wave of coronavirus illness, COVID-19 outbreak that hit Islamabad Capital Territory and Rawalpindi district the worst has started losing intensity in the region as the positivity rate of COVID-19 has turned out to be 1.27 per cent in ICT and 1.38 per cent in Rawalpindi in the last 24 hours with 41 new cases confirmed positive for the infection from the twin cities.

The weekly positivity rate of COVID-19 dropped down to 1.01 per cent in ICT in the last one week that is the lowest in the year 2021 showing the spread of the virus got much slower in the federal capital where the positivity rate of COVID-19 was below 1.5 per cent at the beginning of this year, in January.

It is worth mentioning here that in the second week of March, the positivity rate of COVID-19 from the federal capital jumped to over five per cent for the first time in 2021 and it remained well over five per cent till the third week of May.

During the third wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, the highest weekly positivity from ICT was recorded from March 29 to April 4 that was 11.28 per cent.

Within a month, we would be able to bring COVID-19 spread completely under control in the federal capital as we are trying to make sure that 90 per cent of ICT’s population would be vaccinated against the infection by the end of next month, said District Health Officer ICT Dr. Muhammad Zaeem Zia while talking to ‘The News’ on Sunday.

Expressing hope, he said Islamabad would be the first COVID-19 free city in the country and for that, individuals must play their role and should follow all SOPs religiously.

Data collected by ‘The News’ reveals that the positivity rate of COVID-19 from ICT was 1.57 per cent in the first week of February, from February 1 to 7 this year while in the second week of February, it got to 2.07 per cent, in the third week, it was 2.61 per cent and in the fourth week, the rate was 2.65 per cent. The positivity rate jumped to 4.15 per cent in the first week of March, 5.03 per cent in the second week, in the third week of March, the positivity rate jumped to 8.71 per cent while from March 22 to 28, the positivity rate was recorded as 9.69 per cent.

After recording the highest percentage from March 29 to April 4, the positivity rate was on a decline as it was 10 per cent from April 19 to 25, 9.24 per cent from April 26 to May 2 and 7.78 per cent from May 3 to May 9 this year. From May 10 to 16, it was 6.86 per cent, from May 17 to 23, it was 5.94 per cent and in the last week of May, it dropped down to below five per cent recording 2.46 per cent.

In the first week of June this year, the positivity rate was recorded as 2.11 per cent in ICT and in the second week, it got to 1.71 per cent while from June 14 to 20, ICT recorded the lowest positivity rate of 1.01 per cent.

In the last 24 hours, 31 new patients have been reported from ICT taking the tally to 82,344 and 10 from Rawalpindi taking the tally to 24,673. The virus claimed one more life from Rawalpindi district taking the death toll to 991 while 775 patients had died of the illness from the federal capital.