Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Asad Umar, on Saturday, sounded the alarm over the worsening situation due to the third wave of coronavirus.

Taking to Twitter, he called for national unity in response to the pandemic, warning that the “danger is higher than ever.”

“Need the country to unite in response and achieve once again what we achieved in the first wave, for which we received global praise. Inshallah, we will do it again, together,” he said in a Twitter message.

Umar, who also spearheads the government’s response to COVID-19, presented Nepal as a test case, highlighting that even a small country like Nepal saw an exponential rise in cases going up above 7,000 daily.

“Deaths also rose sharply. You can see the entire region is exploding with cases and deaths, in the latest covid wave. We have Alhamdulillah been spared the worst by timely decisions.”

The pandemic situation in Pakistan is not getting any better either. The country reported 120 more deaths from coronavirus, pushing the national death toll to 18,797 on Saturday.

About 4,109 more infections were reported during the last 24 hours, taking the total caseload to 854,240 nationwide.

According to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), showed that Pakistan carried out 48,103 COVID-19 tests, out of which more than 4,000 returned positive.