ISLAMABAD: At least 36 people in Pakistan died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 2,738 tested positive, the highest single-day spike since July, Pakistan’s National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), which leads the coronavirus mitigation efforts across the country, said on Friday.

The NCOC said there were 1,517 active coronavirus cases in Pakistan as of November 20 and 327,542 people had recovered so far across the country. According to a government portal, Pakistan has recorded 368,665 total infections with 7,561 related deaths.

Dr. Faisal Sultan, special assistant to prime minister on health, told a virtual press briefing arranged by the World Health Organization that Pakistan had made several achievements while battling against the debilitating respiratory disease since the beginning of the pandemic and managed to significantly reduce viral transmissions by July and August this year.

“However, like many countries around the world, easing of lockdowns resulted in a resurgence of cases in October. This required a strategic review of our response,” he said.

According the statement issued by the WHO, Faisal said: “Despite the challenges, Pakistan is committed to containing the outbreak, while ensuring that gains made so far in other areas are not impeded, and that we can continue to collectively work together towards global, regional, and Pakistan-specific goals of universal health coverage with priority to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition services.”

The NCOC also called for banning large public gatherings and enhancing restrictions in high-risk areas.

Pakistan began to lift the lockdown on May 9, about two weeks before the Muslim religious festival of Eid Al-Fitr that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and is celebrated with congregational prayers, family gatherings and feasting.

The country’s transportation sector and most businesses were reopened, though cinemas, theaters and schools remained closed.

More recently, however, the government warned that there was an uptick in infection numbers, telling people to take precautionary measures and announcing that Pakistan was witnessing the second wave of the pandemic which could prove more lethal than the first one.