Covid situation

It is a matter of immense satisfaction that the Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan has been claiming fewer lives for the past couple of weeks. But the issue is not closed as yet. Another 17 people lost their lives to Covid-19 in the country over 24 hours on Oct 28. This marks a minor increase in the daily death count. The official data from the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has given positive news throughout October and the situation is likely to improve further by the end of the year. This does not mean that the authorities can heave a sigh of relief and sit back. According to the NCOC, over 45,000 coronavirus tests were conducted on Oct 28 out of which 660 people tested positive. This means the positivity rate has come down to less than 1.5 percent across the country. This has happened on the 12th consecutive day with a coronavirus positivity rate of less than two percent.

The number of patients recovering from the disease is also encouraging as nearly a thousand people are recovering from the infection every day. The total number of those who have recovered has crossed the 1.2 million mark. With such a large number of infections and recoveries, the total death toll is hovering at slightly over 28,000 victims since the pandemic reached Pakistan in early 2020. The daily infections have come down to 600 which is just ten percent of the peak recorded in June 2020 when the daily infections had crossed the 6,000 mark. That Pakistan has managed to administer over a 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines so far is reason enough to celebrate. However, the reality is that many are still unvaccinated. This may lead us to yet another resurgence of the virus as the winter intensifies.

Pakistan at the moment is administering over 700,000 doses a day whereas the need appears to be for at least one million vaccinations a day. If 150 million people are still waiting for the vaccination, it may take us another 150 days even if we vaccinate one million a day. This is not a small number and needs consistent efforts for more vaccination. Perhaps, the time has come for a door to door campaign for vaccination so that the elderly and people belonging to the lower economic strata can also get vaccination at their doorsteps. There is also a need to continue with the awareness campaign to reduce the level of hesitancy in common people about vaccination so that people get to know about the benefits of the vaccine.