Coronavirus pandemic is again attaining alarming proportion in Pakistan as positivity rate jumped past 7 percent after emergence of 3,567 new cases in the last 24 hours, the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data showed on Friday morning.
The NCOC said that 48,449 tests were conducted across the country of whom 3,567 people tested positive, taking the positivity ratio to 7.36 percent. The country last reported an infection rate of 6.64 percent on August 31, 2021.
With the new infections, the overall tally has risen to 1.315 million, while seven more deaths have taken the death toll to 28,999.
KARACHI SITUATION: The COVID-19 positivity ratio in Karachi reached up to 31 percent on Thursday when 1,940 people were testing positive for the infectious disease, an official report revealed as two more people died in the city.
However, an official of the Sindh Health Department claimed that as hospitalisation was not increasing in Karachi, no drastic measures were under consideration to control the spread of COVID-19 due.
“We have decided that unless the hospitalisation increases up to 40-50% in Karachi, we are not going to take any drastic measures. We are taking some measures to promote vaccination and take action against businesses doing public dealing with unvaccinated staff but no stringent measures are under consideration at the moment in Karachi,” MPA Qasim Soomro, parliamentary secretary health in the Sindh Assembly said.
Claiming that most of the health facilities for Covid-19 patients were lying almost vacant, Soomro said the Sindh health minister held a detailed meeting with the NCOC officials and it was decided that the country could not afford measures like lockdown and people should be asked to take precautionary measures to save themselves.
