Pakistan reported 659 new coronavirus cases during the past 24 hours (Thursday), raising the overall number to 321,877, say the figures released by National Command and Operation Centre on Friday morning.

With this latest addition, Sindh now has 141,249 cases, representing the largest increase in any province. The region-wise details for the rest of the country are: Punjab 101,367, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 38,521, Islamabad 17,781, Balochistan 15,621, Gilgit-Baltistan 4,016 and Azad Kashmir 3,322.

On the other hand, seven more people died of the coronavirus Thursday, which raised the death toll in the country to 6,621. Sindh, Punjab and Islamabad recorded two deaths each while another person lost his life in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Meanwhile, the number of active cases has reached 9,421 out which 780 people are currently receiving treatment in different hospitals in different parts of the country.

As far the critically ill patients are concerned, 529 have been admitted in intensive care units with 74 of them placed on ventilators 

During the past 24 hours, 440 coronavirus patients fully recovered. Thus the total number of people recovering from the coronavirus infection has now increased to 305,835.

The abovementioned stats means that the number of closed cases [deaths + number of those recovering from infection] currently stands at 312,456.

Also on Thursday, 33,901 tests were administered in the country as part of the ongoing efforts to identify, trace and isolate the infected persons to stop further spread.

In this way, the overall number of tests conducted since the coronavirus pandemic outbreak in the country has increased to 4,009,497.

Amid alarming rise in new coronavirus cases, especially in Europe and the US as well as some Asian nations, Pakistan has now slipped down to 23rd position among the most affected countries of the world and ninth in Asia.