Head of National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) Asad Umar has said that hospital inflows and the number of Covid-19 patients in critical care are at the “highest level” since the start of the pandemic in February last year.
“Right now both hospital inflow and critical care patients at highest level since start of Covid,” Umar said in a tweet on Thursday, urging people to follow health guidelines and get vaccinated.
Pakistan launched its coronavirus vaccination drive in February this year and has so far fully vaccinated 18 million of its 220 million population. Health officials say at least 70 million Pakistanis are eligible for vaccination. On Wednesday this week, Pakistan opened its coronavirus vaccination campaign for 17 year olds as Umar said at least 35 percent of the eligible population had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, the country has reported 89 new coronavirus deaths during the last 24 hours, raising the total death tally to 25,978 nationwide on Thursday.
According to the latest figures provided by the NCOC, 61,651 coronavirus tests were conducted in the country, out of which 4,103 came back positive. The positivity ratio was recorded at 6.65 percent in the country. The total tally of Covid-19 cases now stands at 1,167,791, with most cases reported in Punjab.
The number of recoveries nationwide has reached 1,048,872 so far, while the number of active cases in the country stands at 92,941 as of Thursday.
According to the official portal, the total number of Covid-19 patients in Sindh has reached 433,931, while 396,326 cases in Punjab, 32,282 in Balochistan, 163,010 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 99,910 in Islamabad, 32,380 in Azad Kashmir and 9,952 in Gilgit-Baltistan have been reported so far.
Pakistan is reporting 3,975 new infections on average each day, 68 percent of the peak — the highest daily average reported on June 17.