Islamabad: Lahore continues to report a spike in COVID-19 cases and according to the Primary & Secondary Health department of Punjab, the provincial capital’s positivity rate on Thursday remained at 18.57 per cent, which is a record in the current year.
In the past 24 hours, 1,466 people tested positive in the city. Overall, 28,829 tests were conducted in Punjab during the last 24 hours revealing that 2,909 people were infected in the province in one day. The province's positivity rate stood at 10 per cent.
According to the health department in the past 24 hours, 55 new patients were admitted in the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of the Punjab, of which 25 were in Lahore.
5,875 new cases, 98 deaths in 24 hours
COVID-19 assumed alarming proportions in Pakistan on Thursday as 5,875 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours.
The number of patients on ventilators has also gone up from 455 to 522 and according to the official data released by the Ministry of the National Health Services, 98 people succumbed to coronavirus in one day while the number of active cases in the country surged to 84,935.
The health teams conducted 57,591 tests for coronavirus countrywide that showed the positivity rate in the country stood at 10.17 per cent.
Pakistan’s tally of cases after the latest infections has soared to 778,238 while the death toll has reached 16,698.
Hospitals under burden
A day earlier, Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiative Asad Umar while speaking to media after a meeting of the National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC) had said that in the third wave of COVID-19, the number of patients visiting hospitals on a daily basis had gone up from 150 to over 600.
Our hospitals are facing unprecedented burden and trying their best to deal with incoming patients, he said.
About ventilators’ occupancy, he said, “Last year in June, during the peak of the pandemic, we had approximately 3,400 patients on oxygen.
This means there has been a 30 per cent increase since the first wave of the pandemic.”
KP reports over 1,000 cases on second day straight
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Thursday reported 1,242 coronavirus cases and 37 deaths during the last 24 hours. This is the second day in a row the province has reported more than 1,000 infections. A day earlier, KP recorded 1,153 cases. The provincial total is 109,704 and the death toll has risen to 2,990.
Highest one-day infections in Sindh in 30 days
Sindh has also seen a record spike in new cases in the last one month reporting 885 infections.
The province reported three deaths also during this period. With these latest figures, the province’s total number of cases stands at 275,018 and deaths 4,562, according to the NCOC.
