Gurugram reports 398 new Covid cases on Friday

For the second consecutive day Gurugram reported its highest ever surge in Covid-19 cases this year with 398 new infections on Friday

For the second consecutive day Gurugram reported its highest ever surge in Covid-19 cases this year with 398 new infections on Friday.

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The number of active cases went up to 2,283 and the total tally to 63,792. One death was reported on Friday, taking the toll to 366. The district administration said it would go for aggressive containment and stricter enforcement of health protocols such as wearing masks and keeping social distance.

The surge has led to an increase in hospitalisation. Currently, at least 195 moderate to severely ill patients have been undergoing treatment in various private hospitals of the city, while 91.2% are home-isolated. Only five positive patients are isolated in designated Covid care centres.

Gurugram now contributes to almost 21% of Haryana’s active case load, which is around 11,000. The district’s positivity rate -- the number of positive cases per 100 tests --- was 7% in the last two days, and over the last week it was almost 6.2%. According to the World Health Organization, the infection is said to be controlled in a region if its positivity rate was 5% or lower over two weeks.

Other districts like Karnal and Panchkula have also been reporting surge as well; the positivity rate of the state is 4.67%.

“The administration will focus on an aggressive containment strategy. Cases are being mapped geographically to identify areas and source of coronavirus infection. Secondly, an inter-disciplinary approach will be adopted where different government departments will be involved once again to handle specific Covid-19 related duties as done earlier in the district to tackle the surge,” said Yash Garg, Gurugram deputy commissioner, who will meet with officials of different government departments on April 5 to take stock of the situation.

“Hospitalisation facility is being strengthened to provide timely treatment to people. There will be strict enforcement of mask challans to bring behavioural change among people. Meanwhile, health department will continue with rapid vaccination and increased testing to control the transmission,” said Garg. From March 25, the health department has been administering almost 5000 tests a day to timely trace positive cases.

Haryana was categorised as one of the 11 “states of grave concern” by the union ministry of health and family welfare on Thursday. The state on March 15 had reported 440 new cases, on April 2, this was 1609.

Earlier this year, when Covid-19 cases dramatically climbed up with a test positivity rate — proportion of positives out of the samples tested — of almost 22%, the Gurugram administration segregated activities like surveillance, delivery of timely test results, contact tracing, hospitalization and containment task among different government departments.