Over a third of Abbottabad’s virus tests positive

ISLAMABAD: Abbottabad’s coronavirus positivity ratio was among the highest in the country — more than third of the city’s tests were positive on Saturday — closely followed by Peshawar, as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s urban areas reeled from the fourth wave of Covid-19.

According to Geo News, Abbottabad’s Covid test positivity ratio was recorded 34 per cent, followed by Peshawar’s 27 per cent. In other urban areas of the country, Sindh province’s Karachi recorded 12.62 per cent positivity ratio, down from Friday’s 14.50 per cent, while Hyderabad registered 15.40 per cent. In Punjab, Rawalpindi’s positivity ratio was 9.9 per cent and Lahore’s 5.73 per cent.

The Covid positivity ratio is the percentage of actual positive cases appearing in every 100 tests performed to identify infected individuals. The World Health Organisation says that for a contagion to be considered on the decline, the positivity ratio has to be below 5 per cent.

As of Saturday, Pakistan’s was 5.73 per cent. According to National Command and Operation Centre data, 3,084 more cases were confirmed, and 65 more people died of Covid. There were a total of 5,151 critical cases, after 258 more were added to the tally in a 24-hour period. Pakistan has recorded a total of 1,119,970 infections and a death toll of 24,848. The country has so far fully vaccinated 13,022,591, while 36,458,408 have received one dose of the jab.