E-Paper
Covid positivity rate higher in HP’s districts bordering Punjab, Haryana
Officials say high Covid positivity rate also indicates high testing and absolute number of cases reported daily
Four of the 12 districts in Himachal Pradesh have a Covid-19 positivity rate of more than 30% with Sirmaur, bordering Haryana and Punjab accounting for the highest rate of 38.4%. The state recorded an overall positivity rate of 26.3% during the week from May 3 to 9.
According to the state health department, of the 5,861 samples tested in Sirmaur in the week, 2,252 turned out positive. Shimla was second with a positivity rate of 34.1%. As many as 8,441 tests were conducted in Shimla of which 2,879 were positive. The industrial district of Solan was third with 2,772 positive cases of the 8,918 samples tested, recording a positivity rate of 31.1%.
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Mandi recorded a positivity rate of 30.6% with 3,360 of the 10,964 samples testing positive.
The worst-hit district Kangra had a positivity rate of 28.2% with 26,257 samples being tested and 7,410 reported positive.
Kangra deputy commissioner Rakesh Kumar Prajapati said the high positivity rate indicates the high testing and absolute number of cases reported every day. “This is because Kangra is the largest district in terms of population. We account for one fourth of population and thus the number of cases reported will be in relative ratio,” he said.
Tribal districts report lower positivity rate
In Hamirpur, 8,405 samples were tested of which 2,134 were positive. The positivity rate of the district was 25.4%.
Bilaspur recorded a positivity rate 23%. A total of 2,123 people were found positive of the 9,268 who underwent the Covid-19 test.
Kinnaur, Una, Kullu and Chamba recorded a positivity rate of 19%, 18.1%, 16.7% and 15.7%, respectively.
The tribal Lahaul and Spiti district had the lowest positivity rate of 10.5%.
Kangra records most fatalities
Kangra district recorded the highest number of fatalities in the state during the week. A total of 110 people succumbed to the contagion in the district with a case fatality ratio of 1.48%.
Forty-five deaths were reported in Shimla and the CFR was 1.56% followed by Solan with 43 deaths and the CFR 1.55%. Sirmaur and Una recorded CFR of 1.03% and 1.15%, respectively. In rest of the districts, the CFR was below 1%.
No fatality was reported in Lahaul-Spiti district.
The state recorded 145% of the target testing during the given week. A total of 1,02,455 tests were conducted against a target of 70,622.
