Lahore/Quetta/Karachi/Peshawar (Staff Report/Agencies): The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 482,178 on Friday after 2,463 new coronavirus cases surfaced in the country during the last 24 hours.
Overall, 215,679 cases were confirmed in Sindh, 138,608 in Punjab, 58,701 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 18,168 in Balochistan, 37,888 in Islamabad, 4,857 in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and 8,277 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
According to the government's COVID-19 portal, the death toll related to coronavirus has reached to 10,176 with 71 fatalities reported during the last 24 hours.
Over the last twenty four hours, total number of recovered COVID-19 patients across the country reached 437,229 after another 2,156 virus recoveries were reported.
Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Education Shafqat Mahmood said on Friday that it was unclear whether educational institutions would be allowed to reopen on January 11, 2021 keeping in view the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Talking to a private news channel, the federal minister said that the authorities would review the education policy considering the new highly infectious strain of COVID-19.
He said that the final decision would be made on the advice of health ministry as this is fundamentally their domain.
“We cannot risk children’s health,” Shafqat Mahmood said.
Moreover, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says it has cleared the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, meaning poorer countries may soon get access to the shot already available in Europe and North America.
It is pertinent to mention that the global coronavirus cases have reportedly surpassed 81.4 million and death toll tops 1.8 million.
