Ghaziabad has only five active Covid-19 cases, all in home isolation

Nearly five months after the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that struck Ghaziabad in April, the district on Tuesday was left with just five active cases and all of the patients are in home isolation

Nearly five months after the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that struck Ghaziabad in April, the district on Tuesday was left with just five active cases and all of the patients are in home isolation. Officials of the health department said the district registered no new cases in the past five days and the case positivity rate is at an all-time low.

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According to the official figures, the district till August 17 had a total of 55,625 cases with 461 deaths and five active cases. The figures also indicate that there have been only 14 cases in the month so far as against 65 in July and 324 in June. The district recorded zero new cases on 10 days out of 17 in the current month, shows the data.

“With only five active cases and all in home isolation, we can say that the infection has decreased considerably but it is not finished. So, the Covid appropriate behaviour needs to continue. We also have very low case positivity which is about 0.02% in the current month so far,” said Dr Rakesh Gupta, district surveillance officer.

During the second wave, the district operated with 58 hospitals that provided more than 3,400 Covid beds. The official records show that all the 3,410 dedicated Covid beds, including 1,674 beds with oxygen supplies, 569 ICU beds and 229 ventilator beds, in the district are vacant.

“The hospitals have resumed their normal operations. But we still have 20 reserved beds at Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital and several others at our L3 facility at Santosh Medical College. We have also started our preparations for dealing with any likely third wave. Several oxygen plants and paediatric ICU beds have also come up,” Dr Gupta added.

The second wave of the pandemic started to spike from mid of April and the trend continued till May. It was on June 26 that Ghaziabad registered zero case for the first time since then.

Experts said that no Covid patients are coming to hospitals nowadays. “But we have several cases of viral fever that also has Covid-like symptoms, and as a precautionary measure we are getting such patients tested for Covid-19. The infection has decreased considerably but people must observe all Covid protocols,” said Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of Indian Medical Association (Ghaziabad chapter).

“With the positivity rate at lower level, it is now of prime importance that the vaccination must be expedited and coverage should be increased to avoid a third wave,” he added.