Today, Pakistan has surpassed Italy's coronavirus tally as 2,751 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours in the country.
Italy has been ravaged by the COVID-19 for the past few months as over 240,000 people got infected and over 34,000 of these Italians have succumbed to the disease to date. But now the country has contained the virus spread after grappling with it for more than five months.
Italy is one of the few countries that have successfully flattened the COVID curve as less than 250 cases were reported in the last 24 hours. Italy's first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on 31st January when two Chinese tourists in Rome tested positive for the virus. The Italian government took the virus casually in the beginning and paid a huge price eventually as thousands of people died in the next few weeks.
On the other hand, in Pakistan, the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was reported 135 days ago on 25th February.
As of today, the number of COVID-19 cases in Pakistan is more than in Italy. Pakistan's tally is 243,599 while 242,363 Italians have been tested positive for the new virus to date. In terms of coronavirus infections, currently, Pakistan is the 11th most adversely affected country in the world.
But thankfully enough the mortality rate of Pakistan is considerably lower than that of Italy. In Pakistan, 5,058 people have died due to Covid-19 while 34,926 Italians have lost their life-battle against the viral infection. It means that the fatality rate of Pakistan is 7 times less than that of Italy's.
Experts believe that there can be several reasons for such striking disparity between the two countries' covid-related death rates. Some of the reasons given are:
Pakistan is a much younger nation than Italy. As the median age is just around 23 in Pakistan. While Italy has a median age of 45.
Environmental factors are quite different in both parts of the world.
Varying immune responses of both nations.
Early implementation of country-wide lockdown by the Pakistan government as compared to Italy.
Pakistan implemented a 'smart lockdown' in the whole country when only 26 covid cases had been reported. While Italy enforced the curfew in both southern and northern regions of the country when the infections had already crossed 5,000.
