Goa grapples with country’s highest positivity rate amid Covid-19 spike

The state also recorded 71 deaths over a 24-hour period -- the highest single day death toll since the pandemic began last year.

India’s smallest state Goa which was among the last to impose restrictions in view of rising Covid-19 cases is now battling a high positivity rate -- 51.65% with 3,496 of the 6,769 tests conducted emerging positive. Goa’s increasingly grim Covid-19 situation has left the state’s health services on the brink of collapse.

Long queues continue at testing centres with people having to wait for at least a couple of hours until they can be tested including at testing centres in the capital city of Panaji. (PTI PHOTO.)

The state also recorded 71 deaths over a 24-hour period -- the highest single day death toll since the pandemic began last year.

Goa has been grappling with high positivity rates with the positivity rate crossing the 50% mark for the first time on April 29 and it has consistently remained around the 45% mark since then.

Goa’s average positivity rate for the week between April 26 and May 2 stood at 48% which was the highest in the country ahead of Haryana which stood at around 37%.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has said that he expects the positivity rate to come down over the next ten days as the effects of the state ramping up testing are yet to be seen.

Goa avoided a major tragedy on Tuesday evening when the oxygen supply briefly ran out at a ward of the Goa Medical College and Hospital but was quickly restored after the chief minister’s intervention.

On Wednesday, the state commissioned an additional 150 beds that will help some patients who have been lying on stretchers and made to sleep on the floor due to lack of beds.