Hospital inflow at highest level is due to delta variant: Asad Umar
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 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.
Meanwhile, The US will begin sending over four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Pakistan Thursday, said a spokesperson of the White House, speaking to the Voice of America.
The 4,149,990 doses, sent through COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing initiative co-led by Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance), the WHO (World Health Organization) and CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness), are in addition to the more than 9.2 million doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccine already donated to Pakistan since June.
In an email, the White House spokesperson said that US President Biden had said earlier that the US is committed to ensuring vaccination of citizens abroad with the same energy it has overseen vaccinations at home.
"We are working to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people around the world as fast as possible," he wrote.
Pakistan has administered a little over 58mn doses of the vaccine so far, but millions are still hesitant on getting vaccinated against the infection.
While Pakistan has largely relied on Chinese vaccines against COVID-19, the current batch of COVID-19 doses will help officials deal with a shortage of vaccines developed by Western countries. One million doses of the coronavirus vaccine arrived in Pakistan a day earlier, as per a tweet from Sputnik V.
Pakistan's total death tally rose to 25,978 Thursday, after 85 more passed from the infection in a single day.