{"id":15967,"date":"2022-07-23T05:32:52","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T05:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/?p=15967"},"modified":"2022-07-23T05:32:54","modified_gmt":"2022-07-23T05:32:54","slug":"covid-claims-two-more-lives-693-fresh-cases-reported-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/?p=15967&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"COVID claims two more lives; 693 fresh cases reported in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Mishaal Arshad C.M Underground News<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>NIH data indicates a marginal increase in new COVID-19 cases in Pakistan.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>23,423 diagnostic tests were performed in the last 24 hours.<\/strong><\/li><li><strong>Positivity ratio in the last 24 hours was 2.96% across the country.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-cnvs-separator-id-1658554121697\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>A marginal increase was witnessed on Saturday in new COVID-19 cases in Pakistan, data from the National Institute of Health, Islamabad (NIH) showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the NIH data, 23,423 diagnostic tests were performed in the last 24 hours, with 693 returning positive, indicating a 2.96% positivity ratio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The virus claimed two more lives in the last 24 hours, bringing up the national toll to 30,464.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">COVID-19 Statistics 23 July 2022<br>Total Tests in Last 24 Hours: 23,423<br>Positive Cases: 693<br>Positivity %: 2.96%<br>Deaths: 02<br>Patients on Critical Care: 180<\/p>\u2014 NIH Pakistan (@NIH_Pakistan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NIH_Pakistan\/status\/1550664045262422016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 23, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NIH said 180\u00a0COVID-19 patients are still being treated in intensive-care units (ICU) at various medical facilities across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"what-is-covid-ba-5-variant\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is COVID BA.5 variant?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>BA.5, part of the Omicron family, is the latest coronavirus variant to cause widespread waves of infection globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the World Health Organisation\u2019s most recent report, it was behind 52% of cases sequenced in late June, up from 37% in one week. In the United States, it is estimated to be causing around 65% of infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BA.5 is not new. First identified in January, it has been tracked by the WHO since April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a sister variant of the Omicron strain that has been dominant worldwide since the end of 2021 and has already caused spikes in case rates \u2014 even with reduced testing \u2014 in countries including South Africa, where it was first found, as well as the United Kingdom, parts of Europe, and Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coronavirus cases worldwide have now been rising for four weeks in a row, WHO data showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"why-is-it-spreading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why is it spreading?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Like its closely related sibling, BA.4, BA.5 is particularly good at evading the immune protection afforded either by vaccination or prior infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For this reason, \u201cBA.5 has a growth advantage over the other sublineages of Omicron that are circulating,\u201d Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO\u2019s technical lead on COVID-19, told a news briefing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For many people, this means that they are getting re-infected, often even a short time after having COVID-19. Van Kerkhove said the WHO is assessing reports of re-infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have ample evidence that people who\u2019ve been infected with Omicron are getting infected with BA5. No question about it,\u201d said Gregory Poland, a virologist and vaccine researcher with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mishaal Arshad C.M Underground News NIH data indicates a marginal increase in new COVID-19 cases in Pakistan. 23,423&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,76,71,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"category-important-news","9":"category-latest-news","10":"category-pakistan","11":"cs-entry","12":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15972,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967\/revisions\/15972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}