ISLAMABAD: The country on Saturday reported over 7,000 Covid-19 cases for a seventh time during the last 10 days.

As many as 27 people succumbed to the virus, whereas the national positivity rate remained almost unchanged at 11.31 per cent, with 70,389 tests conducted across the country during the last 24 hours.

Data released by the Nat­ional Command and Opera­tion Centre (NCOC) showed that the number of Covid-19 cases reported across the country stood at 7,963.

On Jan 21, Pakistan reported over 7,000 cases for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. The count has mostly stayed above that mark since then and even surpassed 8,000 on Friday, according to the NCOC data.

Similarly, the number of deaths — which was reduced to single digits in November — has been continuously on the rise.

The number of patients in critical care is also increasing and reached 1,375 on Saturday. The number was around 700 in November.

The virus was initially detected in China in December 2019 and then started spreading in other countries. Pakistan had closed its borders and took several measures to stop the transmission.

However, the country reported the first case of the Covid-19 in the last week of February 2020.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2022