There is a sudden spurt in coronavirus infections in Pakistan with the rate of COVID-19 cases surpassing five per cent after a gap of over three months, according to a media report on Wednesday.
As many as 1,708 cases were detected in the last 24 hours, taking the nationwide COVID-19 tally to 348,184, while the death toll reached 7,021 with 21 more patients succumbing to the viral infection, the health ministry said.
The National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) — the nerve centre to synergise and articulate unified national effort against COVID-19 — was briefed on Tuesday about the threat of rising positivity as the rate of coronavirus cases once again surpassed five per cent after a gap of over three months, the Dawn News reported.
The highest increase of 16.71% was observed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK), followed by Balochistan (8.71%), Sindh (5.39%), Punjab (4.46%) and Gilgit-Baltistan (3.24%); while in Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, cases were decreased by 4.92% and 4.61%, respectively.
In Pakistan, the maximum positivity rate had reached 23% in June. It was brought down to 1.7% in September, the report said.
Positivity rate is the percentage of positive results out of the total number of tests sampled.
The positivity rate was 11.79% on March 30, 19.95% on May 25 and 22.24% on June 1. Later, it started dropping and reached 16% on July 6, 3% on August 10 and 1.7% on September 21. An upward trend in the positivity rate was spotted the following month as it reached 2.49% on October 19, 4.26% on November 2 and 5.13% on November 10.
Similarly, the trend of new admissions due to COVID-19 has also started rising as 131 patients were admitted in hospitals, across the country, as compared to 46 on October 5, the report said.
The NCOC was informed that among healthcare workers, 8,573 cases were confirmed which was 3% of overall COVID-19 cases.
According to the latest data released by NCOC, the number of active COVID-19 in Pakistan has increased by more than 14,000 cases in the last eight weeks. The total number of active cases on November 10 was 20,045 as against 5,831 on September 14.