Pakistan's coronavirus positivity rate drops below 6% for first time in over 20 days

• Pakistan reports 3,480 new coronavirus cases in last 24 hours.
• 83 more people die of COVID-19 across Pakistan in last 24 hours.
• Nationwide death toll from COVID-19 rises to 26,662.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reported 3,480 new coronavirus infections Saturday morning as the country continues to battle against the fourth wave of the pandemic.

According to the latest statistics of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), COVID-19 claimed 82 more lives during the last 24 hours, taking the nationwide death tally from the virus to 26,662.

As many as 3,480 people tested positive for the virus after 63,181 COVID-19 tests were taken, according to the NCOC's data. 

This brings the positivity rate to 5.50%, which is the first time in over 20 days that the country has reported a positivity rate less than 6%. Since August 24, Pakistan's positivity rate has been under 7% on 17 out of 19 days.

Meanwhile, the daily case count has mostly been hovering between the 3,000-4,000 range for close to a month now.

The total number of cases has reached 1,201,367, crossing the 1.2 million mark, while 1,082,988 people have recovered from the virus so far and the number of active cases are 91,717.

Read more: Pakistan reports minor drop in active cases for third consecutive day

COVID-19 infections are decreasing in Pakistan, with 3,758 new infections reported on average each day. That’s 64% of the peak — the highest daily average reported on June 17.

Pakistan has administered at least 66,456,245 doses of COVID vaccines so far. Assuming every person needs 2 doses, that’s enough to have vaccinated about 15.3% of the country’s population.

During the last week reported, Pakistan averaged about 1,136,823 doses administered each day. At that rate, it will take a further 39 days to administer enough doses for another 10% of the population.