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With 812 cases, J&K sees six-month high
Jammu and Kashmir’s coronavirus cases hit a six-month high with 812 new infections, pushing the UT’s case tally to 1,34,827, health officials said on Wednesday
Jammu and Kashmir’s coronavirus cases hit a six-month high with 812 new infections, pushing the UT’s case tally to 1,34,827, health officials said on Wednesday.
The death toll mounted to 2,018 as the UT recorded six fresh fatalities – four in Jammu division and two in Kashmir.
Of the new cases, 465 were from Kashmir division and 347 were from Jammu. Of the total cases, 257 were travellers.
J&K had recorded an all-time high on September 12 when 1,698 infections were reported in the UT.
Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) president Nisar-ul-Hassan said the region was facing a second wave. “Second waves of pandemics have been seen to be harsher,” Hassan said, giving the example of 1918 Spanish flu.
“Covid is following the same suit. The second waves of coronavirus in the United States and Europe were uniformly worse than the first. Kashmir is currently under the grip of a second wave and the cases are rising and hospitalisations, too,” he said.
Officials said with 239 cases, Srinagar had the highest number of new infections, followed by 138 in Jammu district, 79 in Udhampur, 78 in Baramulla ,62 in Reasi and 42 in Budgam. Seven out of 20 districts reported single-digit cases.
The number of active cases, which has been rising steadily since March reached 5,053, officials said. After the peak in the first wave in September, active cases had declined steadily as the year ended to reach a low of 593 on February 8 and 9. Since February 9, the UT has added 4,460 active cases in around two months.
“If countermeasures are not put in place, we could end up having a situation that could be worse than what we saw last year. People are experiencing pandemic fatigue and have thrown caution to the wind,” Dr Hassan said.
On Wednesday, 254 patients were discharged from different hospitals, including 192 from Kashmir and 62 from Jammu. As many as 1, 27,774 people have recovered so far, taking the recovery rate down to 94.76 % from around 98% in the first fortnight of February. Over 6.32 million tests have been conducted in the UT so far.
Dr Hassan said that the emergence of the new variants could make the new wave worse. “Some of the variants can make the virus more infectious, deadly, or even resistant to vaccines and treatment,” he said
“The second wave is infecting more younger people than the first one. And, after a couple of weeks, many of them are likely to infect the elder members of their family and when that happens, serious illnesses and deaths will go up,” he said.
