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Infections stabilise after three-week spike in Haryana
The coronavirus infection spread in Haryana seems to be stabilising after a big surge for three consecutive weeks, health officials said.
The coronavirus infection spread in Haryana seems to be stabilising after a big surge for three consecutive weeks, health officials said.
Health department data showed that 17,426 fresh infections were reported from across the state last week (November 16-22) as compared to 17,070 the week before, a small increase of 356 cases.
In comparison, 3,146 more infections were reported during November 9-15 in contrast to the week before (November 2- 8) and 3,348 additional cases were reported during November 2-8 as compared to October 26-November 1.
An all-time high of 17,616 infections was reported in the second week of September. The cases had started declining after that, but picked up again during October end.
Additional chief secretary (ACS), health, Rajeev Arora said the cases seem to be stabilising again after renewed escalation for three weeks.
“We have ramped up sampling in the past couple of days. The department conducted all-time per day maximum 35,037 tests on November 21 and 33,583 on November 22. Our target is to conduct 30,000 tests per day. Increased testing will help us isolate infected persons and bring down the positivity rate,” the ACS said.
Arora said that four districts — Gurugram, Faridabad, Hisar and Rohtak — collectively accounted for more than 67% of the total active cases. “Testing is being increased significantly in these four districts. In Gurugram alone, 16,700 tests were done in the past two days. About 5,500 tests were done in Faridabad in the last two days,” he added.
RT-PCR testing continues to be up
As per the statistics, 13,938 more reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests, considered gold standard test for Covid-19, were conducted by the health department last week.
The health authorities had increased the RT-PCR testing by about 35,000 the week before the last. The positivity rate from RT-PCR testing is 7.9% whereas it stands at 4.4% from the rapid antigen tests.
10 districts have critical positivity rate
Health department data showed that 10 of the 22 districts have critical positivity rate (more than 6%). Faridabad leads the charts with 12.5% positivity rate followed by Gurugram (9.8%), Rewari (8.7%), Hisar (8.4%), Panchkula (8.1%), Panipat (8%), Ambala (7.7%), Karnal and Sirsa (6.5% each) and Mahendergarh (6.2%). Only two districts – Charkhi Dadri (1.7%) and Nuh (1.4%) — have desirable positivity rate of less than 2 %. The overall positivity rate of the state is 6.9%.
Vij rules out lockdown, night curfew in Haryana
Haryana health minister Anil Vij on Monday ruled out the possibility of any kind of lockdown or night curfews anywhere in the state.
“There are two options to prevent the Covid spread: Lockdown and strictness. But I’m in favour of the second option. Amid the existing circumstances, our mask is a vaccine as long as there is no medical vaccine to prevent the infection. I’ll ask my party workers to raise awareness for this cause,” he had said on Saturday.
Vij also distributed masks to commuters, shopkeepers and pedestrians in Ambala. Several BJP leaders accompanied him in the drive.
2,663 fresh cases in state, 28 more die
Haryana on Monday reported another big spike of 2,663 fresh novel coronavirus cases, raising the infection tally to 2,19,963 while 28 more fatalities pushed the death toll in the state to 2,216.
According to the state health department’s daily bulletin, of the fresh cases, the worst-affected Gurugram district reported 866 while 577 infections were from Faridabad.
Gurugram and Faridabad, both of which fall in the National Capital Region (NCR), are the two districts hardest hit by the pandemic.
Among other districts which reported a big spike in cases included Rewari (206), Rohtak (136), Hisar (135) and Sonepat (134).
The fatalities included three each from Gurugram, Faridabad, Hisar and Rohtak.
