Globally the cases of COVID-19 have been declined for about five weeks straight and this is a piece of good news or a wave of relief for most of the people around the world!

The total number of new Covid-19 cases has been steadily declining globally for five straight weeks now, Xinhua News reported on Thursday.

As per the news service, the weekly new cases of Covid-19 have fallen by almost half during this time in 2021.

While five million cases of the novel coronavirus were reported globally in the first week of January, 2.6 million cases were recorded in the week starting February 8 – a significantly lower number.

Active Covid-19 Cases Dropped By Half Since Second Peak

In Pakistan, 1,272 new coronavirus cases and 52 deaths have been recorded in 24 hours, taking the country’s Covid-19 tally to 567,261.

The country’s death toll scaled to 12,488 after 52 people succumbed to the deadly disease. Meanwhile, 2,052 patients recovered from the deadly disease in a day, taking the total recoveries to 530,597.

The decline in cases also comes as inoculation drives gradually commence in countries across the globe. The number of active cases had surpassed 50,000 mark in December 2020. It started decreasing the following month and came down to 25,635 (51.27pc) on Sunday.

This is the second time that active cases have been on a massive decline, as earlier the number of active cases had started declining during the first wave of Covid-19 after crossing the 50,000 mark in June 2020. The number of active cases kept decreasing the following months and now finally reached below 6,000 in September.

However, their number began rising again and reached 11,190 in October and 30,362 while reaching November, following which the government officially announced the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic. The active cases kept rising and surpassed the 50,000 mark in December. It declined after December.

New Covid-19 Vaccines Coming In Pakistan

Pakistan also soon receive 17 million doses of the UK-developed Oxford University-Astra-Zeneca vaccine, with delivery of the first consignment of 7m doses expected before April through the Covax facility. The next 10m doses will come later, likely before June. This will help protect 8.5m people from the virus.

The British High Commission stated that United Kingdom’s world-leading support to Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (Covax) will help Pakistan in its Covid-19 vaccination program.

“So far, the UK has committed £548m to the global Covax initiative, making the UK the largest single donor. The Covax initiative is the key way that more than 180 countries will have fair, early access to Covid-19 vaccines. The UK has also encouraged other countries to contribute over $1 billion to Covax,” it stated. Covax has promised to supply vaccines for 45m Pakistanis in 2021. Covax is an international initiative to support, manufacture, and fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines for one billion people by the year-end.

Registration of Senior Citizen begins across Pakistan

Head of the National Command and Operation Centre Asad Umar also recently announced that the government has decided to register citizens over the age of 65 for the coronavirus vaccine.

“Pleased to announce that registration for getting COVID vaccine is now open for all citizens 65 and above,” said the minister on Twitter.

Umar also said, “Inshallah vaccinations for this age group will start in March.”

Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra believes that Pakistan’s vaccination campaign will “roll out” in full swing in the next few months as the private sector will also start administering the drug.

The authorities have established Adult Vaccine Administration across Pakistan and an inoculation process is in place supported by the digital mechanism.

For adult vaccine administration of the first tranche, there have been 189 designated health care facilities in Punjab, 14 in Sindh, 280 in KP, 44 in Balochistan, 14 in ICT, 25 in AJK, and 16 in GB for the complete vaccine administration process.