Pakistan records 37 more COVID-19 deaths, 1,050 new infections

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reported 1,050 new cases of COVID-19 over the last 24 hours, data released by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) on Sunday morning showed.

According to the national dashboard, 37 more people succumbed to the disease during this period, taking the nationwide death toll to 21,977.

Statistics 20 June 21:
Total Tests in Last 24 Hours: 41,065
Positive Cases: 1050
Positivity % : 2.55%
Deaths : 37

— NCOC (@OfficialNcoc) June 20, 2021

Pakistan recorded a coronavirus positivity rate of 2.55 per cent as of the total 41,065 samples tested for the presence of the infection, 1,050 were declared positive. This brings the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 948,268.

The number of active cases stands at 35,491.

COVID-19 may cause loss of brain tissue

Even mild cases of COVID-19 may lead to loss of brain tissue, according to findings from a long-term study involving 782 volunteers.

As part of the ongoing UK Biobank study, participants underwent brain scans before the pandemic. For a before-and-after comparison, researchers invited 394 COVID-19 survivors to come back for follow-up scans as well as 388 healthy volunteers.

Most of the COVID-19 survivors had had only mild-to-moderate symptoms, or no symptoms at all, while 15 had been hospitalized. Among the COVID-19 survivors, researchers saw “significant” loss of gray matter in regions of the brain related to smell and taste – the left parahippocampal gyrus, left orbitofrontal cortex and left insula.

Some of the affected brain regions are also involved in the memory of experiences that evoke emotional reactions, the researchers noted in a report posted on medRxiv on Tuesday ahead of peer review. The changes were not seen in the group that had not been infected.