Pakistan records highest number of daily Coronavirus deaths since July

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday reported the death of 89 people, the highest single-day death toll in five months.

According to data issued by the National Command and Operations Centre, both Sindh and Punjab recorded 41 new deaths each while six died of coronavirus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

With 2,885 new infections, the number of coronavirus cases reported across the country reached 423,179 – out of which 44,218 cases are active. At least 2,486 patients are under critical care with 336 on ventilators.

The case positivity rate has shot up to 8.58% with the highest COVID-19 prevalence observed in Karachi as 21.80% of the PCR tests conducted in the past 24 hours detected SARS-CoV-2, followed by 18.31% in Mirpur and 16% in Muzaffarabad. Hyderabad’s positivity rate has fallen to 9.15% and Lahore’s to 5.98% while Rawalpindi recorded 8.51% and 14.91%.

Overall, Sindh has the highest case positivity rate of 13.87%, AJK is second at 9.77%, closely followed by KP at 9.67% while Balochistan reported 8.68%, Islamabad 4.88%, Punjab 4%, and GB 2.78%.

The country reported 13,932 new recoveries in the past 24 hours – 12,214 of which were reported in Punjab – raising the total recoveries to 370,474.