Pakistan records less than 4,000 cases of COVID-19 in a day, positivity rate declines to 8.9%
SOPs compliance, vaccination attributed to reduction of cases
Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday reported less than 4,000 daily cases of COVID-19 with the positivity rate dropping to 8.9 per cent.
In recent weeks, the coronavirus positivity ratio had remained over 9 per cent and even touched 10 but now it has started receding.
According to the National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC), 161 people died of coronavirus while 3,377 new cases were reported after 37,587 countrywide tests in the last 24 hours.
These latest additions in deaths and cases have raised the overall number of fatalities to 18,310 and cases to 837,523.
This is the first time that the coronavirus positivity rate has gone below 9 per cent in recent days.
On Monday, the number of daily deaths had dropped to 79, but escalated on Tuesday to 161.
Minister for Planning and chairman of the NCOC, Asad Umar also noted in a tweet there was a significant improvement seen in Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) compliance because of the stronger enforcement measures, including military deployment.
Pakistan’s national average compliance has doubled from 34 per cent to 68 per cent in a week’s time, said Umar adding everyone needed to sustain and build on this compliance level particularly till Eid.
Vaccination of 40-year-olds starts
Pakistan also started vaccinating people above 40 years in order to inoculate over 70 million people in the current year.
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Health Dr Faisal Sultan at a news conference announced that the country had signed agreements with different international companies for the procurement of 30 million coronavirus vaccines in the first half of 2021.
Dr Sultan said the government’s target was to vaccinate 70 million people by the end of the current year. “We aim to vaccinate 70 million people while the population eligible for getting vaccinated in Pakistan is 100 million,” said Dr Faisal Sultan said.