The nationwide tally of COVID-19 patients jumped to 5,015 on Saturday, with 2,410 cases in Punjab, 1,318 in Sindh, 697 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 228 in Balochistan, 216 in Gilgit Baltistan, 113 in Islamabad, and 34 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The virus has claimed 86 lives while at least 762 coronavirus patients have recovered. Balochistan reported eight new cases of coronavirus, all of them locally transmitted, according to the provincial government spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani. The number of locally transmitted Covid-19 cases in the province has risen to 80 while the overall provincial total now stands at 228.
Punjab’s Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department reported another 74 coronavirus cases in the province, taking the total to 2,410. It has also reported two new deaths. The total number of Covid-19 deaths in the province now stands at 21.
The Gilgit-Baltistan government also reported another COVID-19 patient, bringing the region’s tally to 216.
More than 82 per cent of new coronavirus cases in Sindh have been reported from Karachi, according to updates from the provincial health department. Out of the 104 new cases, 87 have reported from Karachi, 13 from Hyderabad, three from Larkana and one from Sanghar. Eleven Union Councils in District East Karachi were also sealed to contain the spread of Covid-19, according to a notification from the Deputy Commissioner’s Office.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 41 new cases of coronavirus, taking the provincial tally to 697. It also reported six new deaths. On the international front, deaths from the Covid-19 epidemic in Italy have risen by 619, up from 570 the day before, and the number of new cases have climbed to 4,694 from a previous 3,951. According to a Reuters report, the daily death toll was the highest since April 6 and the rise in infections was the biggest since April 4. After easing from peaks around the end of March, Italy’s daily death and infection tallies have declined but are not falling steeply, as was hoped by Italians who have been in lockdown for a month.
US deaths due to the coronavirus have surpassed 19,600, the highest reported number in the world, according to a Reuters tally, although there are signs the pandemic might be nearing a peak. Italy has the second most reported deaths at 19,468 and Spain is in third place with 16,353. The United States has five times the population of Italy and nearly seven times the population of Spain.
Iran has reported 125 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, raising the overall toll in the Middle East’s worst-hit country to 4,357. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told a news conference that 1,837 new infections had been confirmed in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 70,029. Iran has carried out 251,703 tests for the virus so far, he added. The latest death toll from the coronavirus in the United Kingdom has risen by 917 to 9,875 people, health officials said. The rise, which detailed the number of hospital deaths as of 1600 GMT on April 10, was lower than that reported on Friday. The Department of Health also said 78,991 had tested positive for the virus as of 0800 GMT on Saturday.
China also reported a rise in new coronavirus infections, mostly in travellers arriving from abroad, as doctors in the central city of Wuhan, where the virus initially emerged, warned its behaviour was still not well-understood. “We can’t say that there is no such potential risk,” said Wang Xinghuan, president of Wuhan’s Leishenshan hospital, its second built especially for virus patients.
China’s National Health Commission said 46 new cases were reported, including 42 from abroad, up from 42 a day earlier.