Pakistan reports major drop in active COVID-19 cases

• Pakistan reports decrease in coronavirus cases, records drop in active cases.
• As brutal fourth wave of outbreak ebbs in country, number of active cases in Pakistan has now dropped to 85,801.
• National coronavirus positivity rate in last 24 hours recorded at 5.44%.

ISLAMABAD: The national tally of total active COVID-19 cases fell to 85,801 on Tuesday as 2,580 more people tested positive for the virus, while 7,240 people made full recovery from the disease in the last 24 hours, according to the latest update issued by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

Some 47,419 tests were conducted across the country on Monday. A day earlier, Pakistan reported 2,988 new infections in a single day. It was the first time in more than a month that Pakistan had reported less than 3,000 coronavirus cases. Before this, the daily case count had mostly been hovering between the 3,000-4,000 range for a month.

The national coronavirus positivity rate in the last 24 hours was recorded at 5.44%. Among the active cases, 5,304 patients are under critical care. Since August 24, Pakistan's positivity rate has been under 7% on 20 out of 22 days.

The NCOC data showed 78 patients died from the virus during the last 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 26,865.

Since the pandemic broke out, a total of 1,210,082 cases have been detected – 33,432 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 32,618 in Balochistan, 10,168 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 103,125 in Islamabad, 169,040 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 415,654 in Punjab and 446,045 in Sindh. 

Read more: Pakistan's daily COVID-19 case count less than 3,000 for first time in over a month

COVID-19 infections are decreasing in Pakistan, with 3,512 new infections reported on average each day. That’s 60% of the peak — the highest daily average reported on June 17.

Pakistan has administered at least 68,227,337 doses of COVID vaccines so far. Assuming every person needs 2 doses, that’s enough to have vaccinated about 15.8% of the country’s population.

During the last week reported, Pakistan averaged about 1,040,926 doses administered each day. At that rate, it will take a further 42 days to administer enough doses for another 10% of the population.