Virus spread in Haryana continues to dip for third week in row

Seven districts have critical positivity rate of more than 6% with Karnal dropping out of critical category

After a gap of 49 days, fresh coronavirus infections reported in Haryana came down to a four-digit figure last week as the decline continued for a third successive week.

The three-week drop in number of new infections is significant in view of enormous amount of sampling, particularly the RT-PCR tests, being done lately (HT File Photo)

The state reported 8,496 new cases between December 7 and 13 as compared to 11,374 the week before, according to the health department data. The weekly drop in infections was thus of 2,878.

The decline had started in the last week of November after a sharp surge in infections during the festive season and due to a range of relaxations in terms of allowing different activities, including reopening of educational institutions.

The three-week dip in number of new infections is significant in view of enormous amount of sampling, particularly the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests, being done for the last three weeks. The RT-PCR is considered the gold standard test for Covid-19 diagnosis.

Over 8 lakh samples tested in 21 days

A health official said more than eight lakh samples were tested in the last three weeks and in about 87% of these, RT-PCR kits were used. Officials, however, said that the decline in infections should not lead to lowering of guard as a fresh spike in cases can occur during the winters.

As per the sampling data, a record 2.81 lakh people were tested across the state during November 23-29 followed by 2.79 lakh people during November 30-December 6 and 2.43 lakh last week.

Following the aggressive testing, the positivity rate in the state has shown a gradual decline. It came down to 6.4% from last week’s 6.54%, data showed.

Seven of the 22 districts have a critical positivity rate of more than 6% with Karnal dropping out of the critical category, according to last week’s data. The other critical districts also showed a decrease in positivity rate. Faridabad’s positivity rate came down to 11.7% from 12.1%, while Gurugram’s dipped to 9.2% from 9.6%.

Rewari recorded positivity rate of 8.2% from last week’s 8.37% and Hisar’s rate came down to 7.2% from 7.6%.

Panchkula maintained 7.7% positivity rate, while Panipat district’s positivity rate dropped to 7.4% from 7.5%. Ambala’s rate plunged to 6.8% from 7.1%. Thirteen districts — Karnal, Mahendergarh, Sonepat, Rohtak, Kurukshetra, Fatehabad, Sirsa, Bhiwani, Yamunanagar, Palwal, Jind, Kaithal and Jhajjar — had positivity rate of less than or 6%, but higher than the desirable positivity rate of less than 2%. Charkhi Dadri (1.6%) and Nuh (1.2%) maintained their desirable positivity rate of less than 2 %.

Meanwhile, the state death toll due to the disease rose to 2,733 on Monday with 16 more fatalities, while 993 fresh cases pushed the infection tally to 2,53,385.

The fresh fatalities included four from Hisar, three from Panipat and two each from Sonepat, Rohtak and Fatehabad districts.

The bulletin said that among the districts which reported a big spike in cases included Gurugram (197) and Faridabad (175). Haryana’s recovery rate is 95.33%, according to the bulletin.