Pakistan's COVID-19 positivity ratio drops below 1% for first time in 2022

• Country reports only 183 new COVID-19 cases during last 24 hours.
• Pakistan's active COVI-19 case count drops to 16,875, lowest since January 9.
• Seven patients succumb to virus and 788 patients recover overnight.

ISLAMABAD: The COVID-19 positivity ratio in Pakistan dropped below 1% for the first time this year as the country reported only 183 new cases during the last 24 hours, the National Command and Operation (NCOC) data showed Friday morning.

As stated by the national COVID-19 body, the country has been witnessing a continuous decline in coronavirus infections and positivity rate for the last eight weeks and now the ratio of positive cases has dropped to 0.64% - the lowest since December 30, 2021 when 0.95% positivity rate was reported.

As per today's NCOC stats, 183 new infections were detected when 28,544 diagnostic tests were conducted countrywide. The fresh COVID-19 cases lifted the total number of cases reported so far since the start of the pandemic to 1,520,817.

Meanwhile, seven patients succumbed to the virus, taking the overall death count to 30,326 overnight, and 788 patients recovered.

With this, the number of active cases in Pakistan further lowered to 16,875, the lowest since January 9.

Pakistan scraps all remaining COVID-19 restrictions

Federal Minister for Planning and Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Wednesday announced that the government is scrapping all the COVID-19 related restrictions across Pakistan.

"The pandemic has not ended yet but undergoing the ending phase," Umar had said while addressing a press briefing at NCOC, flanked by SAPM on Health Dr Faisal Sultan.

Umar, who is also the NCOC chief, had said that after reviewing the COVID-19 situation in the country in detail, the forum has decided to lift all coronavirus restrictions, including protocols for indoor dining, indoor wedding events and markets, sports activities and all the other SOPs across Pakistan.

However, he had said that the only restriction that would continue is the vaccination against COVID-19, but that too till the vaccination ratio reaches 80% or above.

“Then we will consider if we still need to keep the restriction for vaccination in place,” he had said.