Pakistan COVID-19 Updates: Lesser tests, less positive cases & least positivity rate

Pakistan during the past 24 hours managed to conduct only 29,801 COVID-19 tests across the country.

And as an outcome, the country recorded 2566 coronavirus positive cases.

According to the statistics shared by NCOC on Tuesday, Pakistan reported 135 COVID-19 related deaths while the coronavirus positivity rate stood at 8.61%.

While a day earlier, NCOC reported about 30,402 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours out of which 2,379 tests returned positive.

No evidence on Indian coronavirus variant reaching Pakistan

Meanwhile, the health officials in Pakistan found no evidence of the Indian coronavirus variant reaching the country.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr. Faisal Sultan told The News, “We have reduced inbound air traffic by 80% and we are asking all passengers to get tested before boarding while they are also being tested on arrival. We are keeping those testing positive in quarantine to ensure the variant dubbed as triple mutant or Indian variant does not manage to get into Pakistan.”

Sindh may take strict decisions Thursday if coronavirus SOPs not followed

On the other hand, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah while presiding over a meeting of the Provincial Task Force on Coronavirus at CM House on Monday stressed taking strict decisions over Corona SOPs violations.

The province will, however, review the impact of COVID-19 in the post Eid scenario on Thursday and may take strict decisions if the standard operating procedures are not followed or a spike in the cases is reported, CM Shah said.

Punjab govt extends coronavirus lockdown till May 30

The Punjab government has to extend the coronavirus lockdown till May 30. 

A notification released by the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department of the provincial government said that the lockdown imposed throughout the province has been extended till May 30. 

As per the notification, certain services have been exempt from these restrictions such as medical services, pharmacies, courier and postal services, utility offices including electricity, gas, internet and cellular companies, petrol pumps, shops of essential goods, and the food delivery service.