It's a fact that the COVID-19 curve in Pakistan has started to flatten. It's evident in one-day tallies of newly reported cases of the past couple of weeks or so. The country has been reporting a consistently lower number of new cases in recent days. In the last 24 hours, Pakistan reported the lowest single-day tally of new cases in over 7 weeks.

According to stats provided by the official COVID-19 website of the government of Pakistan, 1,918 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours in the country. It's the lowest one-day increase in new cases since May 27th. Currently, Pakistan has 261,917 coronavirus cases in the country with 5,522 of these patients sadly succumbing to the disease.

PM Imran Khan had been severely criticized by opposition parties and several media analysts for not implementing a curfew-like lockdown in the country to contain the novel coronavirus infection. But Khan maintained from the very first day that such a lockdown wasn't feasible for a nation with a crumbling economy knee-deep in foreign loans. So instead he opted for the strategy of 'Smart Lockdown' but was mocked and harshly criticized for introducing the idea.

It seems like the PTI government's policy of implementing a semi-lockdown is now showing positive results as the number of new infections is decreasing day by day and also the economy isn't suffering too severely.

Critics say that the lesser numbers are due to the lesser number of tests done by the authorities. But stats confirmed that such claims aren't accurate because the percentage of tests returning positive is clearly on the decline.

Such news is surely a breath of fresh air in these distressing times but public health experts believe that it doesn't mean that we should resume our normal lives as the danger of contracting the viral disease is still very much there. Especially with Eid around the corner, there is a chance of a spike in COVID-19 cases in Pakistan. The government has been appealing to the public to stay safe in Eid holidays and avoid public gatherings as much as possible so that we can flatten the coronavirus curve successfully.