(Coronavirus in Pakistan) Countrywide Death Toll Surges Past 8,650

 

(Islamabad) Pakistan's coronavirus death toll shot to 8,653 after 50 more people succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours; with the highest fatality rates of 2.8% and 2.6% observed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab respectively. The two provinces recorded 11 and 19 new deaths respectively on December 10; the data released by the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) showed on Friday. KP and Punjab were closely followed by Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) with the fatality rate of 2.4%; while Gilgit Baltistan reported 2.0%. Although Sindh has recorded 191,246 cases; the most number of coronavirus infections in the country; its fatality rate is one of the lowest at 1.6%. Meanwhile; Balochistan has the lowest fatality rate of 0.98%. Since the beginning of December, Pakistan is losing over 50 lives on average per day as 563 people have died of COVID-19 in the past 10 days. During the early months of the pandemic, the country was reporting as many as 139 deaths every day with a mortality rate of over 2.14%. The current rate stands at 2.0%.

 

New cases

At least 3,047 people were diagnosed with COVID-19 across Pakistan in the past 24 hours; bringing the accumulated tally to 432,327 on Friday. The highest coronavirus case positivity rate is observed in Balochistan with 12.85%, closely followed by Sindh at 12.27%. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's positivity rate stands at 8.10%, AJK reported 7.74%, Islamabad 4.81% and Punjab 3.89%. The lowest positivity rate of 1.22% has been recorded in GB. Karachi remains the city with the highest prevalence of coronavirus infections with a case positivity rate of 18.43%, followed by Mirpur at 14.29% and Peshawar at 11.68%. Recoveries At 87.68%, Pakistan has one of the highest recovery rates in the world as a total of 379,092 survived the deadly disease. The highest recovery rate has been observed in Balochistan as 96% of the coronavirus patients have beaten the virus, followed by GB at 95.15% and Punjab 91.06%. KP has reported a recovery rate of 88% and Sindh at 86% while Islamabad and AJK recorded 79.8% and 79.2% respectively. To find out the latest Covid-19 updates from Pakistan and around the world; read our live blog.