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Gurugram: New Covid-19 cases show decline of 23% in a week
Gurugram: The district has witnessed a decline of nearly 23% in the number of new Covid-19 cases in the past seven days (September 25 – October 1) as compared to
Gurugram: The district has witnessed a decline of nearly 23% in the number of new Covid-19 cases in the past seven days (September 25 – October 1) as compared to the cases recorded during the previous week (September 18-24), according to the data from the district health department.
Health officials have attributed the decline in cases to strict surveillance of home-isolated Covid-19 patients to prevent them from transmitting the infection to others in the family.
Between September 25 and October 1, a total of 1,819 new cases were confirmed, while 2,364 new cases were reported in the previous week. The officials said that in nearly 70% of the new confirmed cases during September 18-24, all the family members were being confirmed positive after one of them contracted the virus.
Notably, September reported the maximum caseload of nearly 41% (or 8,500 cases), when the total count was 20, 417 on September 29.
“Strict surveillance of home-isolated patients by maintaining regular contact through calls and home visits by doctors and ground team of health workers has been a successful preventive measure,” said Dr Jai Prakash Sharma, district surveillance officer.
“The proportion of cases where the entire family is contracting the virus has come down. It requires more data evaluation to derive a conclusion,” he said.
Presently, 2,141 patients are under home isolation, which is almost 90% of the total active cases (2,366) in the district. On Friday, 261 new cases were confirmed, taking the total count of people infected with Sars-CoV-2 virus to 21,168 in Gurugram. Of the active cases, 22 patients are in district Covid care centre, while 203 are hospitalised. Two deaths were also confirmed on Friday, taking the Covid-19 toll to 176.
Following Haryana government’s directive to increase surveillance of home-isolated Covid patients, the Gurugram health department constituted a district monitoring committee for such patients. Thirty doctors — six MBBS and 24 ayurvedic — have been appointed who operate separately from the existing rapid response teams. These doctors visit home-isolated patients to ensure they get proper treatment.
“The surveillance of home isolated patients has been increased. Simultaneously, we are retaining the testing. The cumulative number of tests administered by government and private labs are on average 3,000 per day,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer.
According to Yadav, the daily growth rate of the cases is 0.99%, while the average positivity rate is 7.65% now. “Cases are now doubling every 64 days. It has improved from 40 days, which was reported in mid-September,” said Yadav.
