Despite all efforts by the Haryana government and the district administration, keeping a check on the spread of Covid-19 continues to be a challenge for the authorities.
As per the district health department figures, Karnal has reported 916 new Covid cases in the last three days. On Tuesday, the district reported 359 cases - highest single-day spike.
A bulletin of the state health department revealed that at 86.08%, Karnal has the lowest recovery rate in state.
Meanwhile, the positivity rate in Karnal has also increased significantly from around 1% in February to 5.64% in March, pushing the number of active patients to 2,502 on April 13. Total 201 of them are hospitalised.
The poor recovery rate has pushed Karnal to third position in state in terms of number of active cases (17,700), preceded by Gurugram and Faridabad, which have reported 72,285 and 51,135 positive cases, respectively.
With 187 deaths reported due to Covid so far, Karnal is at fourth position in state after Faridabad (428), Gurugram (370) and Hisar (342).
Total 47 patients are in a critical state in district - 11 of them are on ventilator and 36 on oxygen support.
On reasons behind rise in cases, Karnal deputy commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav said besides the farmers’ agitation, social and religious functions, opening of schools, and halts of travellers at eateries on NH-44 have pushed the number of infected persons higher.
{{/usCountry}}On reasons behind rise in cases, Karnal deputy commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav said besides the farmers’ agitation, social and religious functions, opening of schools, and halts of travellers at eateries on NH-44 have pushed the number of infected persons higher.
{{/usCountry}}He said that efforts are being made to ensure that people strictly follow the Covid guidelines and do not move out during night curfew.
Karnal chief medical officer Yogesh Sharma said, “Of the new cases reported in district in the past two months, over 50% are school students and their families.
He said that following rise in cases, Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College has been made a dedicated Covid-19 hospital with 250-bed capacity, 116 of which are already occupied. He said that the strength of Covid ICU has been increased to 100 beds from the earlier 40.