With 339 cases, GB Nagar registers highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases

Alarmed with reports of 339 Covid-19 positive cases on Wednesday, the Gautam Budh Nagar district administration called upon an urgent meeting in the evening to decide

Alarmed with reports of 339 Covid-19 positive cases on Wednesday, the Gautam Budh Nagar district administration called upon an urgent meeting in the evening to decide on the measures to check the further spread of the infection in the district.

HT Image

However, the health department attributed the sudden spike to a delay in uploading data on the central server.GB Nagar district magistrate Suhas LY said that the health officials have been asked to increase surveillance at public places and strengthen contact tracing of positive patients. “Rising number of Covid-19 cases in Delhi also has a direct impact on the neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. In April too, 42% of the cases in GB Nagar had come from contacts in Delhi. But, now that almost all restrictions have been eased and commercial activities have started, we have any no other option other than proper surveillance and following all precautionary measures,” he said.

With 339 cases, the total number of patients suffering from Covid-19 has now reached 18,679 in Gautam Budh Nagar. There are 1,443 active Covid-19 cases in the district with no new deaths being recorded in the last 24 hours. The previous biggest single-day spike in the district was 251, which was reported on September 10.

Attributing the sudden spike in Covid-19 cases to the district’s floating population and the movement of over one lakh across the Delhi-Noida border daily, the DM said that only mass awareness about social distancing and sanitisation can check the spread of the virus. “In the meeting with the health officials today, I’ve asked them to increase daily testing from 4.000 to 7,000 and enhance contact tracing. They have also been asked to keep strict surveillance in the crowded areas. I’ll myself keep a tab on daily testing and contact tracing,” he said.

Suhas further said that in the present situation, early and timely tracking and providing adequate treatment are the main goals before the administration. “Despite having adequate beds for Covid-19 patients, all private and government hospitals have been asked to increase the number of beds in their intensive care units (ICU) and high dependency units (HDU),” he said.

The DM also said that further spread of viral infection cannot be ruled out. “Our focus is on reducing the number of deaths and curing the maximum number of infected patients possible. For that, we have adopted the ‘tracking, testing and treating’ methodology in which we are ensuring the maximum number of contact tracing, testing nearly 4,000 people every day, and treating infected patients as per symptoms. While the recovery rate in GB Nagar is still over 90%, the case fatality rate is only 0.36%, which is much better than the state’s overall rate of 1.45%,” Suhas LY said.

Dr Deepak Ohri, chief medical officer (CMO) of the district, however, said that sudden surge in positive cases on Wednesday, was mainly due to bulk uploading of as many as 169 cases by the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) after October 28. “Actually, it is not a sudden surge as the spike could have been of just 30 cases, if case details were uploaded on a daily basis. Nevertheless, to avert any major surge, we need to further increase the contact-tracing and testing,” he said.

When contacted, the GIMS director Dr Rakesh Gupta, also admitted that there was a delay in uploading cases. “While some of our laboratory staff members tested positive, the weekend offs also caused a delay in uploading the daily positive cases on the portal. We’ll now make all efforts to put the figures on state Covid-19 portal on time,” he said.