Pakistan sees highest 1-day spike in cases, rejects WHO advise

Health workers check a woman with COVID-19 symptoms at a small riverside community in Marajo Island, Brazil. The Brazilian government on Tuesday abided by the Supreme Courts order to resume publication of full COVID-19 data. Brazil has so far recorded 7,4

Pakistan-s top health official on Wednesday asserted that the government is following a "holistic" strategy to deal with the COVID-19 threat as he ruled out adopting the WHO-s recommendation of implementing a two-week strict lockdown, intermittently, to stem the exponential spike in the new Coronavirus cases.

Pakistan on Tuesday registered its highest single-day spike of cases with 5,387 new infections, taking the total tally to 1,13,702. The deadly virus has so far claimed 2,255 lives. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said the government is "conscious" of the disease spread and mortality and has put in place "a very robust" national coordinating and decision-making mechanism.

He said Pakistan has consciously but gradually eased generalised lockdowns but at the same time has focused on enforcement of standard operating procedures in shops, industry, mosques and public transport. "We understand that it is WHO-s role to provide recommendations to member states but understandably theirs is the health-lens, whereas governments have to take into account a holistic picture and make decisions on relative risk assessment basis and this has been the case in Pakistan all along," he said.

5,387
No. of new COVID-19 cases Pak records on Wednesday

1,13,702
Total no. of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan so far

Africa cases pass 2 lakh

Africa-s COVID-19 cases have reached 2,02,782, said the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 54-nation continent has cases and 5,516 deaths. While Africa still represents a tiny percentage of the world-s total COVID-19 cases, well under 5 per cent, officials in South Africa and elsewhere have expressed concern as the number of infections continues to climb.

Mexico cases swell

Mexico accumulated 4,199 more COVID-19 cases and 596 new deaths, suggesting the planned reopening of broader economic activities may still be far away. Deaths had reached a peak of almost 1,100 per day last week. Mexico now has 1,24,301 cases and 14,649 deaths, but officials acknowledge that given low rate of testing, the real numbers are probably many times higher.