A health authority official informed The News that 30 out of 106 individuals who were screened for COVID-19 tested positive, bringing the city’s COVID-19 positivity rate to 28.30%.
Three out of every 100 people tested positive for the pandemic, but the overall positivity rate for the country was only 3% at the time.
“COVID-19 positivity rate has started to rise in the country since 100 people tested positive during the last 24 hours after as many as 3,147 tests were conducted across the country registering 3.18% COVID-19 positivity rate,” a representative of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad told The News.
The COVID-19 positive rate was over 10% in three major cities, Karachi, Islamabad, and Peshawar, according to data provided by the NIH Islamabad. Islamabad experienced a spike in the positivity rate to 12.20%, with 25 people testing positive in 205 tests to find the virus, while Peshawar saw a positivity rate of 14.29%, with 14 people testing positive in 94 tests.
On the other hand, with 18 new cases of COVID-19 in 435 tests, the positivity rate in Lahore remained at 4.14%. While no cases of COVID-19 were documented in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Balochistan, or Gilgit Baltistan, those regions were recognised as COVID-19-free zones.
An representative from the NIH commented on the situation and stated that COVID-19 cases were increasing as a result of a sub-variant of the Omicron form of the SARS-CoV-2.
Despite the virus’s rapid spread, he said, just 18 persons were receiving treatment in the nation’s ICUs and high dependency units (HDUs), indicating that the hospitalisation rate was still quite low.
He insisted that the reason the positivity rate was so high was because only those exhibiting viral symptoms were being checked. He claimed that in order to determine the exact situation, the administration has instructed the provinces and centres to conduct more testing.
