COVID-19: Pakistan's confirmed cases jumped to 76,398, recovery rate rose to 27,110

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Pakistan rose to 76,398 on Tuesday after new infections were confirmed in the country.

The province-wise break up of the total number of cases are as follows:

Total confirmed cases: 76,398

• Sindh: 29,647

• Punjab: 27,850

• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: 10,027

• Balochistan: 4,514

• Islamabad Capital Territory: 2,893

• Gilgit-Baltistan: 738

• AJK: 271

Deaths: 1,621

• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: 482

• Punjab: 540

• Sindh: 503

• Balochistan: 49

• Gilgit-Baltistan: 11

• Islamabad Capital Territory: 30

• AJK: 6

More than 6.2 million people have been reported infected with the novel coronavirus globally and over 374,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Prime Minister Imran Khan 

Prime Minister Imran Khan in a live televised address apprised the nation on the decisions made regarding the lockdown in Pakistan to contain the novel coronavirus during the National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting held on Monday.

Noting that the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) met every morning and consulted everyone, including health experts from Pakistan and around the world, on every step, PM Imran spoke of the country's response and the current situation regarding the coronavirus.

"Since day one when we got to know that the coronavirus had started spreading in Pakistan, we imposed a lockdown following a national security committee meeting.

"We observed the conditions in Chinese city of Wuhan and in Europe when the virus started spreading and we were seeing how the world was responding. But at that time, when we had discussions and meetings, I was very clear on the path Pakistan had to take.

"Pakistan's situation is different than that in China or Europe," he said, noting that he had earlier informed the nation that 25% of the country's population was below the poverty line, which "means that nearly 50 million people in our country do not eat two full meals a day".

"After doing calculations, we figured out that there are 25 million people who are daily wagers and who get paid weekly and whose households had to remain hungry if they did not earn for one day," he added, saying those families comprised 12-15 million people in total.

The labourers and daily-wagers, he added, were part of the informal, unregistered economy.