A slight increase was witnessed in both testing and new coronavirus cases during the past 24 hours (Wednesday) as another 3,359 people were diagnosed with the virus in Pakistan, raising the total to 240,848.

Authorities conducted 24,333 tests in different parts of the country on Wednesday, shows the figures released by National Command and Operation Centre Thursday morning, after which the overall number reached 1,491,437.

Sindh continued to be most-affected province in the country with 99,362 coronavirus cases. The figures for the other provinces/regions are: 84,587 in Punjab, 29,052 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 13,731 in Islamabad, 11,052 in Balochistan, 1,605 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 1,459 in Azad Kashmir.

During the same period, 61 new deaths were also recorded in the country, raising the overall toll to 4,983.

On the other hand, the number of people dying of the coronavirus in Punjab now stands at 1,955 followed by Sindh 1,637, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 1,054, Islamabad 142, Balochistan 124, Azad Kashmir 40 and Gilgit-Baltistan 31.

As of Thursday morning, there are active cases 90,554 in the country out of which 2,193 patients are in a critical condition and being treated in the intensive care units of different hospitals.

The number of tests conducted on daily basis has averaged less than 22,000 for the last two weeks. That’s why Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday said the PTI government was hiding the coronavirus cases in the country reducing the tests significantly.

In a tweet, Bakhtawar – the daughter of Benazir Bhutto – said the government had not tested even 1 percent of the 220 million population despite the passage of six months since the first case was detected in Pakistan. “This is not just incompetence, this is intentional,” she added.

https://twitter.com/BakhtawarBZ/status/1280786341203259392