GB Nagar’s Covid-19 tally crosses 25K mark, last 5K recorded in 49 days

Gautam Buddh Nagar on Saturday crosses 25,000 Covid-19, 301 days after the first case was detected in March.

Gautam Buddh Nagar on Saturday crosses 25,000 Covid-19, 301 days after the first case was detected in March.

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The first 5,000 cases took 145 days in July, slowed down by the hard lockdown that was imposed nationwide for 68 days from March 25. However, as the restrictions were eased and testing increased, the number of days for the next batch of 5,000 cases reduced to 44 and then 30.

Since November, however, as infected people were better isolated, the spread reduced, taking 33 days and then 49 days to reach Saturday’s figure of 25,001.

In October last year there was a surge in cases, with 5,797 positive cases, the most in a month. November and December saw only 3,853 and 2,242 cases, respectively.

GB Nagar district magistrate Suhas LY said, “In July, we were worried about accommodating patients in the Covid-19 facilities in the district. But, today we have less than 400 active patients.”

“We started with just 597 tests in March, and by the end of June, the total test count was only 26,170. But after that, we ramped up our testing rate and between July 1 and November 15, we collected samples of over 628,656 people. It’s obvious that initially the number of positive cases detected will be directly proportional to the number of persons tested. But, after attaining the peak, the graph went down,” he said.

Suhas said that till the vaccine is available widely, the district administration will ensure proper contact tracing and that people follow health protocols. “As a result of our consolidated efforts, the recovery rate in GB Nagar has gone over 97%, while the present case fatality rate (CFR) is around 0.36%, which is much better than the state’s overall CFR of 1.43%,” the DM said.

District chief medical officer Dr Deepak Ohri said that in the present situation, early and timely tracking and providing adequate treatment are the main goals before the health department. For that, we have adapted the universally accepted ‘tracking, testing and treating’ method. The health workers have been told to ensure maximum contact tracing – precisely finding out 25 contacts of one infected patient. We are testing nearly 5,000 people every day and treating infected patients as per symptoms,” he said.

Dr Deepak Gupta, virologist with the Government Institute of Medical Science (GIMS) in Greater Noida, said that the downward trend indicated that the pandemic was under control in the district and people ought to stick to these health protocols even as the new variant of the virus made news.