Pakistan to reopen Kartarpur Sahib Corridor with India amid surge in COVID cases

Even as the COVID-19 cases in India and Pakistan is on the rise, Pakistan's foreign minister has on Saturday announced that it is planning to reopen Kartarpur Sahib Corridor. Taking to Twitter, Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that it has conveyed it readiness to reopen the Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims from June 29 - which also marks the death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pakistan had shut Kartarpur Corridor for an indefinite period from March 16.  "In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, as a precautionary measure to contain and control the spread of the disease the travel and registration for Kartarpur Sahib is temporarily suspended from March 16.’’

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In the Unlock 1 that began from June 8, India reopened its religious places. The Union Health Ministry issued guidelines for the reopening of religious places in order to cut the risk of COVID-19 spread in these places. 

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Pakistan's Coronavirus tally 

Pakistan on Friday recorded its lowest single-day spike in coronavirus cases in about a month after 2,775 people tested positive for the infection, taking the national tally to 195,745. The highest single-day spike was recorded on June 13 with 6,825 new cases. On May 29, Pakistan recorded 2,429 cases, the lowest.

According to the data released by the Ministry of National Health Services, 59 people died due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of fatalities to 3,962. So far, 84,168 patients have recovered from the disease.

Sindh has recorded maximum 75,168 patients followed by Punjab with 71,987, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 24,303, Islamabad 11,981, Balochistan 9,946, Gilgit-Baltistan 1,398 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir 962 patients. The authorities conducted 1,193,017 tests including 21,041 tests during the last 24 hours.

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India's COVID tally

Six days after it recorded four lakh infections, India's COVID-19 tally raced past five lakh on Saturday with the highest single-day surge of 18,552 cases, while the death toll climbed to 15,685, according to Union health ministry data. The COVID-19 caseload zoomed to 5,08,953, while 384 fresh fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours.

The number of active cases stands at1,97,387, while 2,95,880 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, according to the updated figure at 8 AM.  "Thus, around 58.13 per cent patients have recovered so far," an official said. The total number of confirmed cases include foreigners.

Of the 384 new deaths reported till Saturday morning,175 were in Maharashtra, 63 in Delhi, 46 in Tamil Nadu, 19 in Uttar Pradesh, 18 in Gujarat, 13 in Haryana,12 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 each inWest Bengal and Karnataka, seven in Telangana, four in Madhya Pradesh, two in Punjab, one each in Jammu and Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. 

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