Hospital inflow at highest level since start of pandemic due to Delta variant: Asad Umar

• The minister urges people to follow the government's mandated coronavirus standard operating procedures.
• He says, both hospital inflow, as well as critical care patients, are currently at their highest level since the start of the pandemic.
• Says impact of Delta variant is seen globally.

Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Thursday announced that Pakistan's hospitals are under a lot of pressure because of the growing number of coronavirus patients, most of whom tested positive for the Delta variant of the virus. 

Taking to Twitter, the minister wrote: "As seen globally, [the] impact of the Indian delta variant in Pakistan also shows that it spreads faster and increases chances of patients to need hospitalisation."

The minister, who is also the head of the National Command Operation Centre (NCOC), wrote that at the moment, both hospital inflow, as well as critical care patients, have reached the highest levels since the start of the pandemic.

In view of the situation, the minister urged people to follow the government's mandated coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) and get vaccinated. 

Pakistan's coronavirus death toll nears 26,000

Pakistan 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% in the country as of today.

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 today.

According to the official portal, the total number of COVID-19 patients in Sindh has reached 433,931, in Punjab 396,326, in Balochistan 32,282, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 163,010, in Islamabad 99,910, in Azad Kashmir 32,380 and 9,952 in Gilgit-Baltistan.