E-Paper
Pune city’s daily Covid case count drops to single digit
People in the high-risk category should follow safety measures and take booster doses, say officials
The district has seen a decline in Covid cases and the daily cases reported in the city over the past five days range from 2 to 10 cases, according to officials.
As of May 18, the active cases in the district are 103, among which 94 patients are in home isolation and 9 are hospitalised. However, experts claim the trend will continue for the next two to three months with a meager possibility of a surge in cases until a new variant is reported.
According to health department officials, from April 1 to April 7, the district reported 710 cases, while between April 8 and 14 as many as 728 cases, from April 15-21 as many as 760 cases, April 22-28 at least 588 cases, April 29 to May 5 as many as 368 cases, May 6-12 as many as 179 cases and May 13 to 17 the Covid cases declined to 61.
Dr Rajesh Karyakarte, head of department of microbiology, BJ Medical College, said the surge in Covid-19 cases this year was induced by the XBB 1.16, Omicron recombinant sub-variant.
“Huge population is already vaccinated and has developed resistance against the infection. During genomic sequencing, we have observed there is a lot of mutation in XBB 1.16 sub-lineage. Which shows the sub-variant is struggling hard to survive and eventually this surge will decline,” he said.
Dr Karyakarte, further said, the dominance of the omicron sub-lineage is likely to fizzle out in the next couple of months. However, people should not take the virus infection lightly.
Dr Suryakant Devkar, assistant health officer of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), informed the daily cases that we have observed for the last two weeks the fresh Covid-19 cases reported in the city have declined significantly. And for the last five days, the fresh cases reported are between 2 and 10 Covid-19 cases daily.
“Due to this currently we have 51 active cases out of which 8 are hospitalised and 43 are in home isolation. The Covid-19 patients hospitalised are high-risk patients but their condition is stable. Given the decline in cases, the number of people getting tested for Covid-19 has also decreased,” he said.
Dr Bhagwan Pawar, health officer of PMC, said in Pune city the number of cases has declined and is reported in single digits.
“People have developed herd immunity in Pune city, as in past had a large number of Covid-19 infected cases and almost all people have taken two doses of vaccine. However, we urge the people in the high-risk category to follow safety measures and take booster doses,” he said.
