NCOC completes 500 days with fairly heartening results

LAHORE: Established on March 27, 2020 to fight coronavirus in Pakistan, or about a month after the first Covid-19 case was identified in Pakistan, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has now completed its 500 days in office with fairly heartening results coming forth under its supervision. The NCOC had become operational immediately at a time when there were 1,400 odd coronavirus cases in Pakistan had caused 11 deaths.

Coronavirus, which had rocked Pakistan 530 days ago on February 26 last year, had started claiming lives in this part of the world just 20 days later on March 18, 2020. Since then, or during these last 509 days since Pakistanis had started dying, the country has gone to lose 23,865 of its citizens due to this pandemic by 6:30pm Sunday evening, which thus means that 47 (46.88) Pakistanis have on an average succumbed to the deadly disease every 24 hours, calculations done by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network show.

By Sunday evening, Pakistan had 1,067,580 confirmed Covid-19 cases, of which 82,076 were classified as active cases by the NCOC. There have been 961,639 recoveries till date and vaccines (both doses) have been administered to 37,424,706 (37.42 million) people.

Pakistan has till date registered 4,732 cases per one million population, with just 106 deaths per one million population. The global average of confirmed cases per one million population stands at 26,065.9, which again signifies that Pakistan has been very lucky with just 4,732 infected people among every one million residents. The government and the NCOC can, of course, both claim credit for arresting the spread of the disease.

As far as global deaths per one million population are concerned, calculations reveal that only 63 out of 222 countries and territories on the world map have a rate lower than Pakistan in this context, meaning thereby that the situation is extremely encouraging if one looks at the plight and misery of 159 nations that have suffered far more badly than a country that is heavily populated and has a high density of humans living per square kilometre than most.

It is imperative to note that the global average of deaths per one million population rests at 552.2, and with just 106 deaths, Pakistanis should deem themselves extremely fortunate. Of the 16,448,406 corona tests conducted under the NCOC’s supervision, Pakistan has thus tested 72,912 of its one million citizens. Among the 222 countries and territories affected by coronavirus, Pakistan ranks at number 31 as far as nations with most cases are concerned.

In terms of total deaths (23,865), 27 countries have recorded more deaths than Pakistan, and these devastated nations include the most well-developed ones with exemplary health infrastructures, hospital facilities and all the desired equipment and medication to treat those suffering. However, there is an area of grave concern for Pakistan despite all these achievements on corona treatment front!