ISLAMABAD; With massive reduction in new cases and fast recovery of l patients, Pakistan is inching closer to officially declare defeating COVID-19. According to National Command and Control Centre (NCCOC) data uploaded by the Health .ministry in Islamabad on August 1, 2020 at 18.45 GMT , Pakistan’s total corona cases were 278305 and out of it 247177 have recovered so for . Pakistan ‘s death rate reported for the same period due to COVID-19 was 5951. Sindh which was worst hit province of Pakistan from the novel virus, reported less than 300 new cases and only 10 death in the last 24 hours. Sources claim Pakistan’s infection rate has dropped from over 5000 cases per day to less than 1000 and similarly death number also dropped from over 150 daily to below 30. In some areas like Rawalpindi, Jehlum and Sialkot , no death was bmreported for the last many days. Sources said in most of hospitals and corona centres no new cases were reported for the last one week. The government seems following a conscious approach of wait and see till the end of the cases across Pakistan before formally announcing defeating corona virus. Pakistan government is taking every possible step to ensure that corona virus does not surge again. The government introduced some tough measures like closing of businesses before Eidul Azha to avoid debacle of Eidul Fiter when the business community and the people did not observe any corona related SoPs and it gave spike to the infection in the weeks to follow.” Now our approach is to force business community and the public to follow corona specific SoPs “, an official of federal government said on the condition of anonymity. The official also claimed that the government may open up emergency of all public sector hospitals soon. Pakistan has adopted approach of smart lockdown to isolate only those areas where comparatively more cases were reported and this strategy has worked well . The official of Health ministry claimed that smart lockdown policy worked more than expectations to help Pakistan curtail the virus. Punjab information minister , Fayyad Chohan , also hinted at official announcement of fighting out COVID-19 in the weeks to come. He told mediamen on August 1, that Pakistan’s fight against corona virus has entered into what he said the last phase.