Pakistan reports highest single-day COVID-19 deaths since May

By Islamuddin Sajid

ISLAMABAD (AA) - Pakistan on Thursday reported 102 deaths due to coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since late May, the Health Ministry said.

The last time the country saw 102 deaths was on May 20, a number that slowly fell to 11 as of July 22.

With the fresh fatalities, the total number of deaths now rose to 24,187, according to ministry data.

Another 4,934 new infections were also logged over the past 24 hours, bringing the country's overall count to 1.08 million, with 975,474 recoveries.

The total number of active cases in the South Asian country is currently 85,633, up from 79,837 on Saturday.

Despite an expedited nationwide vaccination drive, Pakistan is reeling from a deadly fourth wave of the virus, seeing cases in the range of 4,000­-5,000 for the last two weeks.

Over 40 million vaccine doses have been administered in Pakistan to date, and anyone 18 or over is eligible for vaccination.

However, only a little more than 11 million people are fully vaccinated in the country of over 200 million.

Asad Umar, a federal minister leading Pakistan's COVID-19 response, urged the public to take vaccines and make the country safe from COVID-19.

"4 crore (4 million) vaccination doses administered. The last crore (million) took only 9 working days to administer. Keep it up, Pakistan. Let's vaccinate and make Pakistan safe from this disease," he tweeted.