Peshawar(National Times)- As the fifth wave of the coronavirus surges through the country, due to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, major cities in Pakistan have seen an uptick in test positive ratio, which is the percentage of tests that came back positive for COVID-19 out of the total conducted.

In 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised governments that before reopening, rates of positivity should remain at 5% or below for at least 14 days. The Pakistan government has also directed curbs in cities which report positivity rates over 10%.

Karachi’s positivity ratio was recorded at 40.91% as 1,542 cases were recorded after a total of 3,769 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, Peshawar saw 454 new cases, taking the positivity ratio to 27.99%.