Islamabad (Web Desk): Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, who also heads the NCOC, the urged masses on Thursday to get vaccinated against coronavirus and follow government issued guidelines against the disease.
"Rapid build up starting to take place in Covid patients hospital inflow, as well as patients in critical care," the minister tweeted.
He added that the s Indian variant of coronavirus has caused devastation in countries in the region.
The NCOC head asked people to follow SOPs, get vaccinated and do not risk their and others lives.
Meanwhile, Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Faisal Sultan said that the COVID-19 positivity ratio had reached 19% in Karachi, up from 15% two days ago and now the highest in the country.
"Covid numbers continue to rise," the SAPM said, adding that the national positivity ratio was not at 5.2%.
He said that Karachi has the highest positivity ratio at 19%, followed by Peshawar at 9.4%, Islamabad at 6.2% and Lahore's ratio currently at 3.8%.
Dr Faisal also urged the people to wear masks saying that the crowded places should be avoided.
The SAPM added that more than 580,000 vaccine doses were administered on Wednesday.
On the other hand, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 981,392 on Thursday after 2,545 new coronavirus cases surfaced in the country during the last 24 hours.
According to the government's COVID-19 portal, the death toll related to coronavirus has reached to 22,689 with 47 fatalities reported during the last 24 hours.
Over the last twenty four hours, total number of recovered COVID-19 patients across the country reached 916,373 after another 1,030 virus recoveries were reported.