Pakistan: COVID-19 death toll heading 350-mark

Pakistan has recorded 15,521 COVID-19 cases till now.

As coronavirus cases surpassed the 15,000 mark with the highest number of deaths in a single day, the government has decided to bring back 7,500 overseas Pakis­tanis in the first week of May, reported Dawn News.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on National Security Dr Moeed Yusuf was quoted as saying by Dawn News at a press conference that 26 persons died during the past 24 hours while 44 were in a critical condition.

“Moreover, 80pc of the deceased were over 50 years old and 70pc of the overall deceased were suffering from some other critical diseases [such as cancer, heart problem and diabetes],” he added.

According to National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 5,827 cases were diagnosed in Punjab, 5,695 in Sindh, 2,313 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 978 in Balochistan, 333 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 313 in Islamabad and 66 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, reported The Express Tribune.

Meanwhile, some media reports are claiming that the country is preparing to  loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

The federal government is preparing to loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions as the number of infections and deaths are “well below previous projections”, officials told The Express Tribune on Wednesday. 

“The mortality numbers are nowhere near the same as we see in other countries,” Planning Minister Asad Umar, who oversees the response to the virus, told journalists as quoted by the newspaper.

He said infections and deaths in Pakistan were 30-35% lower than projections and, if things remained this way, the country could open up further in coming days.