ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reported 102 deaths due to coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since late May, the National Command and Operation Centre said Thursday.
Statistics 12 Aug 21:
Total Tests in Last 24 Hours: 59,397
Positive Cases: 4934
Positivity % : 8.30%
Deaths : 102— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) August 12, 2021
The last time the country registered 102 deaths was on May 20, a number that slowly fell to 11 on July 22 before it started to surge again.
With the fresh fatalities, the total number of deaths now rose to 24,187, according to ministry data.
Meanwhile, Pakistan also confirmed 4,934 new Covid-19 infections, the NCOC said.
The NCOC, a department leading campaign against the pandemic, said that the total cases have risen to 1,085,294, including 975,474 recoveries.
Despite an expedited nationwide vaccination drive, Pakistan is reeling from a deadly fourth wave of the virus, seeing cases in the range of 4,000 to 5,000 for the last two weeks.
In the last 24 hours, the authorities conducted 59,397 tests, receiving back a positivity rate of 8.3 percent.
Commenting on the uptick in cases, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, who also heads the NCOC, said the July 25 general elections in Kashmir acted as a “super spreader event” for the crisis with the mountainous region’s transmission rate ranging between 25 and 30 percent since then.
Had recommended that AJK elections get postponed for a couple of months and a special vaccination campaign run before the elections. It was not agreed. Since the elections the positivity of AJK is running between 25 and 30%. Elections have acted as a super spreader event.
— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) August 12, 2021
The minister said he had recommended delaying the elections until the completion of a special vaccination campaign but it was not agreed to.
“Since the elections, the positivity of AJK is running between 25 and 30pc. Elections have acted as a super spreader event,” Umar tweeted.
In the run-up to the election, the NCOC had urged the chief election commissioner of Kashmir to delay the polls in the wake of the rise in the number of daily infections as large political meetings could lead to a further spike in cases.
However, the proposal was not accepted and major opposition parties in the centre — the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party — opposed the idea, maintaining the Constitution had no such provision.
Meanwhile, over 40 million vaccine doses have been administered to date, and anyone 18 or over is eligible for vaccination.
Umar also urged the public to take vaccines and make the country safe from Covid-19.
“4 crore (4 million) vaccination doses [have been] administered. The last crore [million] took only 9 working days to administer. Keep it up, Pakistan. Let’s vaccinate and make Pakistan safe from this disease.”
