Daily new Covid-19 cases hit two-month high: ministry

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reported 4,119 new cases of Covid-19 over the last 24 hours, the highest since May 19, as the Delta variant — the strain of the pandemic first identified in India — is spreading across the country, the Ministry of National Health Services said on Wednesday.

On May 19, the ministry recorded 4,207 cases that slowly declined to 663 until June 21, but have since spiked again.

The new numbers brought the caseload to over 1.015 million, the data showed.

Sindh is the most affected province of the country with 371,762 infections, followed by Punjab which has reported 354,312 cases.

The Delta variant, which has been classified by the World Health Organisation as among the four Covid-19 variants of concern due to evidence that they spread more easily, likely caused the latest outbreak.

The highly contagious mutation is surging through Asia, with record numbers of infections in Australia and South Korea, prompting some countries to tighten curbs and others to hasten vaccination.

Some 44 more people also died of the virus, raising the total to 23,133, while 935,742 have so far recovered.

The government has expedited the inoculation drive in the past weeks, and anyone 18 or over is eligible for vaccination. Over 27 million vaccine doses have been administered to date, with a record of over 778,000 shots in the last 24 hours.

“Yet another daily vaccination record set,” Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operation Centre, tweeted, adding that the new target is 1 million vaccinations in a day.

Over the weekend, Umar that by end of August, at least 40 percent of the eligible population residing in major urban centres will be vaccinated, adding that the campaign will be accelerated in August.

During the last week, the government averaged about 467,124 doses administered each day. At that rate, it will take a further 93 days to administer enough doses for another 10 percent of the population, a Reuters tally showed.

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