Pakistan coronavirus cases rise to 16817 with 385 deaths

ISLAMABAD: The number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan soared to 16,817, including 24 deaths, according to official figures.

According to the National Command and Operation Center, 7971 tests were conducted from across the country in the last 24 hours and out of them 990 tested positive for the respiratory disease.

Punjab has 6,340 cases of covid-19, Sindh 6,053, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 2,627, Balochistan 1,049, Gilgit-Baltistan 339, Islamabad Capital Territory 343 and Azad Kashmir has reported 66.

So far 4315 patients have recovered while the death toll from the virus stands at 385.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan has blamed the country’s elite for the nationwide lockdown.

“Coronavirus doesn’t differentiate between rich and poor But the elite and rich did a complete lockdown suddenly – they didn’t think about the daily wage earner and how he would feed his family and the elite decided this for the whole country,” Khan said.

“When the elite realized, they could die from coronavirus, they imposed the lockdown and did not think about daily wagers, labourers or poors,” PM claimed.

Global death toll

At least 232,200 people globally have died from COVID-19 and 3,273,418 have been infected by the novel coronavirus that causes it, following an outbreak that started in Wuhan, China, in early December.

The World Health Organization referred to it as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. As many as 81,953 new cases of COVID-19 and 5,318 deaths were reported in the previous day.