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Thursday March 28, 2024

Corona positivity rate surges to 13pc in a day

By Our Correspondent
January 24, 2022
Corona positivity rate surges to 13pc in a day

ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: The COVID-19 situation in Pakistan continued to get serious as the country's positivity rate surged to 13% in the last 24 hours, the official report of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) on Sunday said.

According to the NCOC, a total of 58,334 tests were conducted in the country during the last 24 hours, of which 7,586 came back positive, pushing the nationwide tally of the virus cases to 1,367,605.

The country’s positivity rate now stands at a record high of 13%. Pakistan registered its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases 7,678 on Friday since the pandemic started in 2020. Meanwhile, 20 more patients succumbed to the virus during the same period, taking the death toll to 29,097. In addition to this, the country’s active coronavirus cases surged to 70,263, making it the highest in over four months. Pakistan last reported 65,725 active cases on September 16, 2021.

According to NCOC data, as many as 1,083 COVID-19 patients were in critical condition. The NCOC revised COVID-19 protocols for mosques and announced that only fully vaccinated people will be allowed to pray inside the places of worship.

The NCOC also announced on Friday that all schools with a high COVID-19 positivity ratio would remain closed for one week across the country. Meanwhile, hospitalisation due to COVID-19 continued to rise in Karachi where three more people died due to complications of the infectious diseases as positivity remained over 42 percent, officials said on Sunday.

Some of the leading private hospitals turned downto admit COVID-19 patients as they were packed to capacity while public hospitals also received a huge number of patients on hourly basis on Sunday, health officials in Sindh said.

As many as three more patients of coronavirus died overnight lifting the death toll to 7,741 and 3,108 new cases emerged when 16,469 tests were conducted, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said in his daily COVID-19 situation report on Sunday.

Syed Murad Ali Shah said that 16,469 samples were tested which detected 3,108 cases that constituted 18.9 percent current detection rate. He added that so far 7,467,836 tests have been conducted against which 524,797 cases were diagnosed, of them 90.5 percent or 474,819 patients have recovered, including 464 overnight.

The CM said that currently 42,237 patients were under treatment; of them 41,775 were in home isolation, 30 at isolation centers and 432 at different hospitals, adding that the condition of 368 patients was stated to be critical, including 23 shifted to ventilators.

According to him, out of 3,108 new cases 2,480 have been detected from Karachi. As per district wise statistics, 811 cases were detected in South Karachi, East Karachi 704, Central Karachi 448, Hyderabad 258, Korangi 242, Malir 155, West Karachi 120, Kashmore 28, Sanghar 27, Sujawal and Tando Mohammad Khan 25 each, Badin 24, Ghotki 23, Sukkur 20, Tharparkar 17, Thatta and Mirpurkhas 16 each, Nawabshah and Dadu 14 each, Matiari 12, Jamshoro and Tando Allahyar 10 each, Umarkot 9, Larkano, Shikarpur and Jacobabad 8 each, Khairpur and Noushehro Feroz 2 each new COVID cases reported.