Covid crisis: Sample positivity rate starts to rise in Ghaziabad

Ghaziabad: The reducing trend of fresh Covid cases in the district has reversed in March as the sample positivity rate stands at 0

Ghaziabad: The reducing trend of fresh Covid cases in the district has reversed in March as the sample positivity rate stands at 0.44% in the first 17 days of the month as against 0.31% in February, according to data of the district health department. Officials said that they have taken up measures of increased testing and surveillance in order to check the rise in Covid-19 cases.

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Sample positivity rate refers to the number of samples testing positive per 100 samples tested. Sometimes patients take more than one test for confirmation and so, total positive samples can be higher than total positive cases, the officials explained.

According to the official records, the positivity rate saw a constant decline since November last year when it was 4.14% (4,822 positives out of 116,399 total test reports) and came down to 2.99% (3,034 of 101,496 reports) in December and further to 0.74% January (501 of 67,847 total reports).

The records indicate that the trend has reversed with rise in positive cases in the month of March. During the 17 days of March, the district had 173 positive reports out of 39,336 taken up for testing, while in February the number of positive reports was 171 (out of 54,800 total reports).

“The trend is somewhat increasing in March and we are trying to track areas where more cases have started to arrive. Recently, 30 positive cases were detected at the national academy of the Central Public Works Department and the area is now contained. We will increase surveillance as well as testing to detect suspected cases and will also resort to micro containment in order to control spread of the infection,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.

The data also indicates that the overall positivity in the district from March last year to March 17 this year has stood at 3.81% with 29,810 positive test reports resulting from a total of 782,659 test reports.

“On one hand we are trying to keep check on the rising cases, while on the other we are trying to increase our vaccination coverage for senior citizens and persons with comorbidities as they are highly susceptible to Covid infection,” Gupta added.

Experts are of view that even if the cases may rise in future, the best strategy is to start implementation of measures and strict enforcement. “We already know what actions need to be taken up. So, they must start implementing them immediately, along with strict enforcement. Contact tracing becomes vital in present conditions, along with tracing, testing and treatment,” said Dr Lalit Kant, former epidemiology and communicable diseases head at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

So far as the vaccination is concerned, Ghaziabad’s overall coverage is about 2.01% with 90,819 persons receiving the shots from January 16 to March 17, according to the figures of the health department. The district has an estimated population of 4.5 million.

In the first phase, the district vaccinated 20,282 beneficiaries out of 27,280 health-care workers while 15652 have also received their second dose till March 17. similarly, 11,756 of 20,259 front-line workers have received their first dose till March 17 and 3,047 have also taken up their second dose.

For the vaccination of the third category -- senior citizens and people having comorbid conditions -- that started on March 1, the figures indicate that 35,398 of senior citizens and 4,684 of beneficiaries having comorbidities were given shots till March 17. The overall target for the category is 93,480 for the month of March.