Ghaziabad’s Covid-19 tally crosses 20,000, Noida nearing the mark

Ghaziabad: With 136 new Covid-19 cases, the Ghaziabad district crossed the 20,000 mark on Wednesday. Neighbouring Gautam Budh Nagar is also nearing 20,000 cases,

Ghaziabad: With 136 new Covid-19 cases, the Ghaziabad district crossed the 20,000 mark on Wednesday. Neighbouring Gautam Budh Nagar is also nearing 20,000 cases, as per the records of the state control room.

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As per the control room figures, the total tally of Ghaziabad reached 20,071 which includes 18,763 patients discharged, along with 85 deaths and 1,223 active cases. GB Nagar, on the other hand, has now 19,614 total cases, with 71 deaths and 1,115 active cases while 18,428 patients have been discharged.

Ghaziabad is among the top four districts in the state which have the highest number of cases. In the first 10 days of November, Ghaziabad had 1,359 fresh cases while GB recorded 1,737 new cases.

The figure of 20,000 cases in Ghaziabad arrived in a span of 251 days with first case in the district reported on March 5. The first 10,000 cases were recorded in 189 days while the next 10,000 took about 62 days to arrive.

With a surge in cases in Delhi, there have been concerns that the tally of new cases in NCR districts of UP may rise while Diwali is round the corner.

“To check any rise of new cases, we are conducting focussed testing which is taken up for different groups and have also increased our contact tracing which is about 25 contacts per patient. Further, surveillance activity has been ramped up to keep tab on new cases,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer of Ghaziabad.

District magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey was not available for his comments.

According to the state figures, Ghaziabad is among the top three districts in the state having highest number of active cases. The other two districts are Lucknow (3,054) and Meerut (1,784).

Ghaziabad also figures among the top four districts in the state, along with Lucknow, Kanpur City and Prayagraj, which have total cases more than 20,000.

According to the records of the Ghaziabad district health department, the overall positivity rate in the district is about 4.22% with 474,067 samples collected till November 10. The total sampling also includes 275,963 tests conducted with the help of rapid antigen kits.

Meanwhile, GB Nagar district is also nearing the 20,000 mark. However, district officials said that there is no major spike in cases considering the festival season and recent spike in cases in Delhi.

“We are conducting more tests. It is in the range of about 3,500-4,000 tests per day. The rise of cases in Delhi could be due to multiple factors. But we cannot say that our district has sudden spike in cases. Earlier, there were about 200 average daily cases and now we have about 150 average daily cases,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate of GB Nagar.

“To keep cases in check, we are testing more of symptomatic persons and have also ramped up our contact tracing which is about 20-25 contacts per patients. We keep asking residents to mandatorily wear face masks and maintain social distancing,” he added.

However, the officials in both the districts have raised concerns that wearing of face masks by people is a major issue which needs strict enforcement.