E-Paper
Covid-19 cases double in three days, Punjab among 10 worst-hit states
Before pilgrims started testing positive, the doubling rate was 18 days on April 25
The Covid-19 cases in Punjab are doubling in three days following a spike triggered by pilgrims from Nanded town in Maharashtra.
The doubling rate of infected cases was 18 days on April 25 and then slipped to 13.1 days on April 29 before crashing to three days as more and more returnees entered the state and tested positive. The total number of coronavirus cases in the state stood at 380 – 1.15% of the total 33,021 cases across India, on Wednesday, but surged to 977 in the next three days, taking its share of positive cases to 2.44% of the total 39,911 on May 2. On Sunday, the state’s tally rose to 1,128.
The sharp spike has put Punjab among the 10 worst-hit states in the country, according to data compiled jointly by the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The nine states which have more covid-19 cases than Punjab are Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. With the jump in positive cases, the death or mortality rate has also come down to 2.17% from close to 7% more than two weeks ago. There have been 24 Covid-19 deaths – three of these were reported on Sunday – in the state so far.
ONE IN THREE RETURNEES TESTS POSITIVE
A total of 4,169 people returned or were ferried to the state from the Hazur Sahib gurdwara in Nanded in the past week. Though the state health department has taken the samples of all of them, 1,785 samples have been tested so far, out of which 609 – one in every three – returnees have tested positive, as per the official figures at 6pm on Sunday.
The pilgrims were at Nanded since March 25 when the national lockdown was announced to stem the coronavirus spread. After frantic appeals from them and some political leaders across the political spectrum, chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh had written to Union home minister Amit Shah and his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray to help evacuate the devotees. However, no one had anticipated that their return would trigger the second wave of the virus that has pushed the state’s count into four digits. These fresh cases are posing a serious challenge even as the state is relaxing the curfew restrictions in most districts from Monday.
AMRITSAR, HOSHIARPUR LATEST HOTSPOTS
The Union health and family welfare ministry had classified three districts – Jalandhar, Patiala, and Ludhiana – among the 130 red zones on Thursday night, but most of these new cases have been reported from other areas, except Ludhiana where the number of cases has jumped from 29 on April 29 to 111 on May 3, an increase of 283%.
Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Bathinda, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Muktsar, and SBS Nagar are among the districts where the positive cases have also grown exponentially in the past few days. In Amritsar, there were only 14 positive cases till April 29 but increased to 214 – 198 of them returnees - in the next four days. Among the green zones till April 26, Tarn Taran now has 40 positive cases – all of them Nanded returnees. In addition to the three districts listed in the MoHFW’s list of red zones, the state health authorities added six others – Amritsar, SAS Nagar, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur, Moga, and Pathankot – in this category as per their status report of May 2, as these nine districts accounted for 86% of the total cases in the state.
