ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reported 157 deaths due to the coronavirus and 5,908 new infections over the past 24 hours.
This is the highest death toll the country has recorded since the start of the pandemic in Feb 2020. In June last year, Pakistan had recorded 153 deaths.
The new deaths have taken the country’s death tally to 16,999. The most deaths in the country were reported in Punjab followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last 24 hours.
With the emergence of new 5,908 coronavirus infections, the positivity rate across Pakistan has touched 11.27 per cent.
The new cases have taken the national tally of positive cases to 790,016 with 285,542 reported in Punjab, 276,670 in Sindh, 112,140 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 72,613 in Islamabad, 21,477 in Balochistan, 16,327 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 5,247 in Gilgit Baltistan.
ARMY CALLED IN FOR HELP:
The National Coordination Committee (NCC) on Friday imposed a ban on indoor dining till Eid and closed schools in districts that have a positivity rate above five per cent in a bid to contain the coronavirus situation that is growing worse by every passing day.
In a bid to force people to follow anti-coronavirus precautions, such as wearing masks and closing markets at 6pm, Prime Minister Imran Khan, who chaired the NCC meeting, said that he has asked the Pakistan Army to help police in the implementation of the SOPs.
The PM has warned that if precautions are not taken then the country can face an India-like situation i.e. collapse of the healthcare system due to a high number of cases. “I appeal to all that if we don’t take precautions then we are on the path of becoming India within two weeks,” he said, adding that a lockdown will have to be imposed if things continue to go south.
“If our circumstances become the same as India, then we will have to close down cities. We can’t do that because, as experience has shown, the poor suffer the most when lockdowns are imposed,” he said.
“Currently we don’t have as bad conditions as India does because a year back we had raised the capacity of the hospitals,” he said in a reference to the first wave when Pakistan was completely shut down to contain the virus.
