By: Sajjad Hussain
Islamabad: Pakistan has reported more than 3,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, a whopping 46 per cent jump in the last 24 hours, and the highest single-day surge witnessed over the last four months has been fuelled predominantly by the Omicron variant, according to official data.
On Thursday, 3,019 cases were reported, compared to 2,074 24 hours earlier, data compiled by the Ministry of National Health Services showed. Consequently, the positivity rate has also jumped to 6.12 per cent from 4.7 per cent reported a day earlier.
The last time the country had reported more than 3,000 coronavirus cases was on September 15 last year.
The ministry has reported that the number of confirmed cases has climbed to 1,312,267, while the death toll has touched 28,992 after another five people died in the last 24 hours.
So far 1,260,045 people have fully recovered, but 651 were still in a critical condition.
The number of active cases has risen to 23,000, up from 17,748 on Monday.
The fifth wave of the pandemic, which hit Pakistan earlier this month, is driven by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, which is a cabinet level ministry of the Pakistan government with responsibility for national public health, has said.
The rise in the new cases comes despite Pakistan administering at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to over 100 million people and fully vaccinating more than 75 million people.
Additionally, the National Command and Operation Centre has abolished centralised quarantine with immediate effect.
“Centralised quarantine arrangements for Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) positive for inbound passengers have been abolished forthwith. Now, all the passengers detected as positive in RAT on arrival at airports/border terminals will self-isolate themselves for 10 days (home quarantine),” it said.
All the inbound passengers who are currently quarantined at centralised locations are being shifted accordingly.
