The third wave of coronavirus infection is still wreaking havoc in Pakistan as evidenced by the consistently high positivity rate for the past several weeks.

• In the last 24 hours, 45,954 Covid-19 tests were conducted in the country out of which 4,213 returned positive.

According to the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC), the latest COVID-19 situation of Pakistan is as follows:

Confirmed cases: 834,146        
Confirmed deaths: 18,149       

New cases (last 24 hours): 4,213     
New deaths (last 24 hours): 79     

Tests conducted in the last 24 hours: 45,954     

Positivity rate (last 24 hours): 9.16%    

It must be noted that for the past few days the national testing has gone down due to unknown reasons. On average, only 45,000 tests have been conducted daily for the past 3 days. This might be due to the fact that recently the government has started spending all its resources in amping up the country's Covid vaccination drive. The numbers back this assumption as now over 100,000 Pakistanis are being vaccinated daily these days.

Speeding up the immunization campaign is a welcoming development but it should not come at a cost of curtailing the daily Covid testing. The government should make sure that more and more people get tested daily so that we can have a clear picture of where we stand in the pandemic.