Staff Report

ISLAMABAD:  – Pakistan has seen more than 200 COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, the country’s deadliest day since the pandemic began last year, official data shows, as authorities contemplate imposing new lockdown restrictions.

At least 201 deaths were reported by the authorities on Wednesday, taking the country’s death toll to 17,530, according to data from the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC), which is overseeing the government’s pandemic response.

There were 5,292 new cases of the coronavirus recorded, with active cases rising by 413 to 88,207, the data showed.

Pakistan has been grappling with a surge in COVID-19 cases since early March, when daily case rises began to exceed 2,000 cases.

The country has been carrying less than the World Health Organization-recommended number of tests, and recorded a test-positive rate of 10.77 percent on Tuesday, official data showed, with 49,101 tests conducted.

The country has also been seeing a higher number of daily deaths due to COVID-19 since February. In April, there have been at least 3,000 deaths, or 17 percent of all COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began, according to official data.