Pakistan sees decline in virus cases, posts biggest single-day recoveries

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

The government has expressed satisfaction that the coronavirus situation in Pakistan would not worsen during the current month as was earlier feared.

Pakistan's COVID-19 recovery rate has also reached 55.5% after 11,471 recoveries were recorded across the country over the past 24 hours.

According to the government's COVID-19 portal, these recoveries were the highest single-day jump in the country.

The total number of recovered cases in the country now stand at 125,094, while 2,460 patients are in critical condition.

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"I had earlier warned cases of COVID-19 might exceed 1.2 million by the end of July. However, as a result of precautionary measures followed by people and the administration, the tally of cases may be less than 400,000,” Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar said at a presser.

However, he said, while the country’s overall coronavirus situation was getting better, there was no significant improvement in Sindh, particularly Karachi.
Umar said the number of deaths, people admitted to hospitals and patients on ventilators had dropped, which was a good sign.

Lauding people’s response to the government’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) to curb the spread of the virus, he said if this continued the situation would continue to improve.

"However, it does not mean that the pandemic is over and you can do whatever you want as any lapse in following preventive measures can cause spike in COVID-19 cases,” he said, adding: "Although cases are declining, we are not seeing significant improvement in Sindh, especially Karachi.”

"The National Command and Operation Centre team held a meeting with the provincial chief secretary and health minister and is working on a way to replicate the results from the rest of the country in Sindh,” he said and urged the people to follow doctors’ advice seriously.