Pakistan has witnessed a significant spike in COVID-19 cases with Karachi’s positivity rate reaching 20% mark as the country reported another 2,783 cases of the novel virus on Saturday (today).
As per the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC) statistics, a total of 49,247 COVID-19 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours out of which 2,783 came back positive taking the national positivity rate to 5.65%.
Another 39 people succumbed to the novel virus during this time period.
Meanwhile, Karachi’s COVID-19 positivity rate has escalated to 20.34%. Sindh reported a total of 1,631 new coronavirus cases, including the 1,314 cases from Karachi.
Of the 1,314 new cases detected in Karachi, 356 belonged to District East, 287 to District Central, 251 to District Korangi, 190 to District South, 122 to District Malir and 108 to District West.
The metropolis lost 25 more people to the virus, raising the death toll to 5,697 in the province. In the meantime, 931 patients are under treatment at different hospitals in Sindh. Of them, 857 patients are said to be in critical condition and 52 of them are on life support.
According to CM Sindh Murad Ali Shah, fatality rate of the disease remained at 1.6% in Sindh. He said the diagnosis of 1,631 cases against 18,075 samples constituted a 9% current detection rate.
The total number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan since the pandemic began has risen to 986,668, while the number of active cases in the country has increased to 45,579.
As far as the recoveries are concerned, 918,329 people have recovered from the infection in total, while 22,759 have succumbed to the virus.