Glimmer of hope as number of cases goes down slightly.

Byline: Ikram JunaidiUpdated

ISLAMABAD -- With all trends of the novel coronavirus changing downwards for the last five days, health experts hope it can be the start of declining of the graph.

They anticipate that the number of cases may further decrease but the number of deaths may increase as a large number of patients are still on ventilators and around 9 per cent of them may not survive.

The country reported 3,622 Covid-9 cases and 78 deaths over the past 24 hours, taking the national tally of cases to 9,22 and casualties to 3,88.

According to data released by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 4, to 5, cases were being reported daily for the past few days, but the number has been declining with every passing day. However, the worrisome thing is that the number of tests, which had reached over 32,, has reduced to around 25, during the past few days.

Testing has been reduced over the past few days

An official of the National Institute of Health said on condition of anonymity that it was true that the number of tests had reduced over the past few days, but it was also a fact that the number of suspected patients declined across the country. 'It can be the outcome of smart lockdowns or maybe we are moving towards herd immunity due to which now less number of cases is being reported,' he added.

The herd immunity is a terminology in which if a large number of people are infected, the pace of infection reduces.

The official claimed that there was no policy to reduce the number of tests for Covid-9. 'However, tests have been reduced because we have been getting fewer numbers of suspects in hospitals. Let me prove it with another example i.e. almost a week back the case positivity was around 2 per cent which means that 2 out of tests were being found positive. However, on Tuesday (June 23) the case positivity was 6.7pc. It shows that more suspects were tested as compared to last week,' he explained.

'Though the number of deaths also reduced, it may increase in coming days, as around 55 patients are on ventilators and almost 9pc of them may not survive. The trend has changed and graph has started declining so we will hold a meeting on Saturday (June 27) to discuss the projected number of cases in coming days,' the official said.

When contacted, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said data spoke for itself but it would be too early to talk about it.

'As far as trends are concerned let us hope...