Pakistan’s active COVID-19 caseload hovers over 100,000 mark for fourth straight day – The News International

ISLAMABAD: With 5,327 fresh COVID-19 infections, Pakistan logged over 100,000 active cases of the virus for the fourth consecutive day as the country continues to battle against the fifth wave of the pandemic, data from the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) showed Tuesday morning.

As per the latest stats of the NCOC, the country reported a COVID-19 positivity ratio below 10% for the first time since January 19.

The country’s daily case count, too, witnessed a dip in the last 24 hours as only 5,327 out of 55,202 diagnostic tests conducted countrywide came back positive. With this decline, Pakistan’s COVID-19 positivity rate dropped to 9.65%.

On January 19, the positivity rate stood at 9.48%.

However, the new infections placed Pakistan’s confirmed case count at 1,430,366, while the active case count clocked in at 105,675.

Meanwhile, 32 more people succumbed to coronavirus, pushing Pakistan’s COVID-19 death toll to 29,301.

The NCOC has extended coronavirus curbs in the country from January 31 till February 15, as thousands continue to contract the infection amid a spread in the Omicron variant.

The forum had imposed non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on January 19, which were to be reviewed on January 27 in light of the COVID-19 situation in the country.

The restrictions for the wedding sector were already imposed till Feb 15.

Positivity rate drops slightly in major cities

On Monday, the test positive ratio in major cities of Pakistan witnessed a minor dip, especially in Karachi where in the past week the positivity levels had reached as high as 40%.

The positivity rate in the port city declined to 23.38% as of Tuesday morning.

In the last 24 hours the positivity rate in Lahore went down from 14.44% to 13.53%. Similarly, in Quetta it decreased from 12.14% to 6.10% and in Islamabad from 14.29% to 12.76%.

As the fifth wave of the coronavirus surges through the country, due to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, major cities in Pakistan have seen an uptick in test positive ratio, which is the percentage of tests that came back positive for Covid-19 out of the total conducted.

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