Deadliest day for Pakistan since July as coronavirus kills 26

Wednesday proved to be the deadliest day for Pakistan in over three months as 26 people died of the coronavirus, raising the death toll in the country to 6,893, showed the figures released by National Command and Operation Centre on Thursday morning.

Eight of these latest deaths were reported in Sindh with five each more dying in Punjab, Azad Kashmir and Islamabad. 

It also means that the last 24 hours were the worst for Azad Kashmir as the region recorded the highest number of daily deaths since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.   

Similarly, the alarming rise in cases continued as another 1,302 people tested positive for the virus on Wednesday.

Hence, the overall number of coronavirus cases officially reported in the country has reached 338,875 amid the rise in positivity rate among the people.

The region-wise distribution of the coronavirus cases is given as: Sindh 147,787, Punjab 105,535, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 40,022, Islamabad 20,694, Balochistan 16,026, Azad Kashmir 4,491 and Gilgit-Baltistan 4,320.

Meanwhile, the number of people fully recovering from the infection increased to 316,665 after another 605 were declared clear of the coronavirus after going through isolation or treatment in hospitals. 

Hence, a total of 323,558 cases have so far closed [deaths + number of people recovering from infection] in the country.

On the other hand, the number of active cases in the country 15,317 with 1,007 of them receiving treatment in hospitals. 

As far as the hospitalised people are concerned, 827 patients have been receiving treatment in intensive care units due to their critical condition. Meanwhile, 123 of these critically ill patients have been placed on ventilators.

On Wednesday, 32,376 tests were administered in different parts of the country which represented an increase of over 20 percent against the previous day. The overall number of tests conducted in Pakistan since the outbreak of this pandemic has now increased to 4,573,768.

Meanwhile, more than 99,000 novel coronavirus cases were recorded in the United States in the past 24 hours, a new daily record, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. The country reported 99,660 new infections between 8:30 pm Tuesday and 8:30 pm Wednesday (0130 GMT), and 1,112 deaths, the tally by the Baltimore-based school showed one day after Americans voted to choose their next president. 

More than 9.4 million people have been infected and 233,000 have died in the United States so far during the pandemic, by far the worst tolls in absolute terms globally.

Cases have been surging to record highs across the country since mid-October, especially in the north and the Midwest.

Health officials in some states have already sounded warnings about their ability to handle an influx in hospitalizations as the winter flu season looms. The pandemic has also slammed the US economy, fuelling a historic contraction in growth and tens of millions of job losses.

It also impacted the US election, with more than 100 million voters casting their ballot by mail or in person before Election Day on Tuesday -- the highest number of early voters ever.

The final election results are not yet known, with the count partly delayed by the high number of mail-in ballots as many Americans sought to avoid crowded polling booths.

US President Donald Trump -- who was briefly hospitalized for Covid-19 in October -- has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak, insisting that the virus will eventually just "disappear."

His Democratic election rival Joe Biden has sought to turn the vote into a referendum on Trump's handling of the crisis, and vowed to listen to scientific recommendations on handling the pandemic should he take the White House.

With inputs from AFP.