Pakistan’s COVID-19 cases jump past 600,000

Islamabad: COVID-19 positivity rate in Pakistan has jumped to 6.5 per cent and by Friday the tally of cases across the country had reached 600,198.

According to the data shared by the National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC) Pakistan’s number of cases had gone beyond 500,000 on Feb 1, 202.

It is only during the last forty-five days that more than 100,000 cases were reported.

Meanwhile, Pakistan reported 54 deaths in the last twenty-four hours which took the number of overall mortalities caused by COVID-19 to 13,430.

Similarly, Friday happened to be another day with more than 2,000 new cases reported in one day.

According to the NCOC portal, 2,701 new infections were reported after 41,133 tests conducted during the last twenty-four hours.

Since December last, such an increase (more than 2,000 cases in a day) is reported.

The number of recoveries from COVID-19 is also up and in the last one day, around 1,573 patients were declared free of virus after testing negative.

Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan in a statement on Friday confirmed Pakistan was experiencing a new (third) wave of COVID-19, deadlier and faster than the first two.

All the big cities particularly those in Punjab are in the grip of this new wave, further said Dr Faisal.

A day earlier after the reports of commotion and mismanagement during vaccination in Islamabad, Dr Faisal Sultan along with health officials had visited Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Polyclinic and CDA (Capital Development Authority)Hospital and personally oversaw vaccination process and arrangement made there.

He interacted with senior citizens who were there for immunization and briefly spoke to them about the benefits vaccination.

“I urge the public to come forward for vaccination, and to strictly adhere to all SOPs,” Dr Faisal said.

District Health Officer (DHO) of Islamabad Dr Zaeem Zia in a tweet on also requested the people to remain cool.

“We are trying to make vaccination customer-friendly and regret any inconvenience in case you had.”

There were some reports but we have ramped up systems and on Thursday we have not received any reports of inconvenience.

Please get your elders registered, he appealed to the residents of Islamabad.

Vaccination in Islamabad like the rest of the country kicked off on March 10 and on the on the first day, a total of 1,500 people over the age of 60 were vaccinated.

Those who had arrived at PIMS remained confused most of the time as the hospital, which was inoculating around 200 people daily, received an additional number of 400 citizens, majority those who were retired bureaucrats, parliamentarians or others wielding some influence in the past. They wanted to get the jabs at the earliest.