537 coronavirus deaths reported in past seven days across Pakistan

• 537 people succumbed to coronavirus in the past week
• Number of infections drops to 14,341 in last seven days
• Over 80,000 recoveries reported since December start

KARACHI: The novel coronavirus has claimed 1,838 lives in the past 27 days across the country - up 64.25% from the same period in November when 1,119 people died of COVID-19. 

Data issued by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) showed that at least 537 deaths have been reported across Pakistan in the last week alone. 

Analysis done by Geo.tv showed a 29% increase in COVID-19 deaths from December 13 to 20 when the virus claimed 560 lives compared to 434 deaths reported in seven days prior. 

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Cases

Although the month of December saw rapid increase in coronavirus-related deaths, a noticeable drop in new infections has been observed across the country in the last week. 

The weekly analysis showed that the 20,493 cases were reported in the week that started December 6. The number of infections fell to 18,181 in the next seven days while the past week saw 14,341 coronavirus cases across the country. 

So far, a total of 72,827 infections have been reported in the past 27 days - up 24.73% for the same period in November when 58,386 cases were recorded. 

Recoveries

A total of 423,892 people have survived the novel coronavirus since the pandemic hit the country in late February. The last 80,606 recoveries were reported since the beginning of December alone. 

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Case positivity

Although a decrease in the national case positivity rate has been observed, the coronavirus prevalence in cities such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Abbottabad and Sindh's Karachi remains high. 

An NCOC statement said the KP city witnessed highest case positivity rate of 40.3% on December 21 and yesterday it stood at 25.5%. Similarly, Karachi's positivity rate has remained above 12% for the last 10 days. 

In contrast, the highest national coronavirus positivity rate was recorded at 9.71% on December 6. On Sunday, it was 6.13%.