OBSERVER REPORT
ISLAMABAD The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 2,637 on Friday after new infections were confirmed in the country on Friday. The national dashboard, maintained by the federal ministry of health, the death toll increases up to 40 and 10 patients are in critical condition. The latest statistics of the national dashboard stated 126 patients have recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic thus far. The total count of COVID-19 includes 1,069 patients in Punjab, 783 in Sindh, 343 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 190 in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), 175 in Balochistan, 68 in Islamabad, 9 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). The country has recorded 66 new cases during the last 24 hours. Pakistan had reported its first case of coronavirus (COVID-19) on February 26 when a 22-year-old man was tested positive for the deadly virus at a high-end private hospital in Karachi after returning from Iran. Meanwhile, the number of confirmed coronavirus deaths crossed 50,000 on Friday as the United States, Spain and Britain witnessed their highest tolls yet and the world economy took a massive hit. The human scale of the pandemic has never been more stark — experts warning that more than one million cases of COVID-19 disease confirmed globally is probably only a small proportion of total infections as testing is still not widely available. The United States accounts for around a quarter of confirmed cases but Europe is far from being out of danger — Spain reported more than 900 deaths in 24 hours on Friday, for the second day running. The virus has now killed more 10,000 people across Spain, but not 29-year-old Javier Lara, who has just returned home after being treated in an overburdened intensive care unit. “I was panicking that my daughter would get infected. When I started showing symptoms, I said I wouldn´t hold her or go near her, or change her nappies,” he told AFP, describing his fear for his eight-week-old after facing death at the “worst moment in his life”. While Italy still leads the world in fatalities, France, Belgium and Britain have also been hard hit. The UK government is rushing to build field hospitals after a one-day toll of 569. The battle waged by public health experts across the world ebbed and flowed on Friday, with German experts saying the rate of new infections is slowing thanks to lockdown measures, but Asian city-state Singapore confirming it would close schools and workplaces to fend off a possible upsurge in cases.The world economy has been pummelled by the virus and associated lockdowns, with more than half the population of the planet under some kind of stay-at-home order.
