Pakistan: Daily COVID-19 cases drop below 2,000

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Pakistan's daily coronavirus tally dropped to below 2,000 for the first time after a months-long surge in the pandemic, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The country recorded 1,979 new cases over the past 24 hours compared to an average 5,000 cases per day in May and June.

The highest number single day cases were nearly 7,000 recorded last month.

With the new cases, the total number of infections has reached 251,494, with 2,151 of them in critical condition, the data showed.

Another 50 patients lost the battle against the disease across the country in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 5,320. Over 60% patients, or 170,656, have recovered so far.

Currently, Pakistan is following a strategy of locality-based lockdown in scores of hotspots in some 20 big cities in an attempt to mitigate the virus spread.

According to official statistics, the country has so far conducted over 1.6 million virus tests.