Death toll crosses 500, over 35% of state’s active cases in Gurugram

The Covid-19 death toll on Monday reached 511, with 14 deaths confirmed by private hospitals and the district health department

The Covid-19 death toll on Monday reached 511, with 14 deaths confirmed by private hospitals and the district health department. The steep rise in Covid-19 cases in the last one month and escalated death count, especially in Gurugram and Faridabad, have put Haryana among the 10 most affected states having a high fatality rate.

HT Image

“Since Haryana is among the affected states showing a rapid surge in cases, it is likely that fatality will also rise. It can reach up to 2%,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurugram.

Currently, the fatality rate in the state is 0.88%, which is lower than the national fatality rate of 1.1%. In the last seven days, the district recorded 65 Covid-19 deaths, according to the district health bulletin. The situation, however, on the ground, has been different as many Covid-19 deaths at the cremation ground are going unreported.

According to the union ministry of health and family welfare data issued on Monday, due to a powerful resurgence in coronavirus cases, the state on Sunday recorded 145 new deaths and 13, 322 new infections. Over 104,722 cases are currently active in the state, out of which Gurugram has 35.5% of the infection load.

On Monday, at least 3,037 new cases were confirmed in the district, which took the active case count to 37,244.

The average number of coronavirus cases reported every day is now at the highest since the outbreak of the epidemic. According to officials and experts, poor respiratory hygiene, lax social distancing and influence of the new variant have led to a spike in new cases.

On average, the district reported about 3,834 new cases per day in the past seven days. It has increased from 3,329 cases confirmed in the previous week, with the number of active cases soaring from 10,691 on April 17 to more than 37,000 at present, in just a fortnight.

Currently, the test positivity rate, the proportion of positives out of total samples tested, has also increased to 33%, compared to the 10% reported in the second week of April, when the daily case count began escalating. The positivity rate of the state has also increased to 7%.

“Testing has been increased in at least 170 large outbreak regions (LORs). On Monday, about 16,000 tests were done in affected areas. The health department has recommended the district administration to extend LORs to roughly about 200,” said Dr Jai Prakash Sharma, district Covid-19 surveillance officer. The health department along with private labs has been conducting 12,000 tests per day, on average.