E-Paper
Pune city’s positivity rate drops to less than 10 per cent
Reason why the second wave did not have a severe impact in the city as much as it did in other cities is because of the higher prevalence of the antibodies caused due to the first wave, say experts
Even as the city has witnessed a slight spike in new Covid-19 cases the positivity rate has dipped below ten per cent since the last one week, according to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) data.
Positivity rate is the number of new cases being reported for every ten tests conducted.
The city reported 294 new cases on Sunday with over 4,014 tests conducted and the positivity rate stood at 7.32 per cent.
On December 7 the positivity rate was 10.57 per cent which came down to 6.79 per cent and 6.51 on December 10 and December 11 respectively.
The reason why the second wave did not have a severe impact in the city as much as it did in other cities is because of the higher prevalence of the antibodies caused due to the first wave, say experts.
Dr Subhash Salunkhe, who chairs the Maharashtra Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Technical Committee, said, “Although we did see a small spike in the number of new cases, it was not as much as Delhi. The fact remains that over 50 per cent of the population in congested areas of Pune were already infected and had developed antibodies against the infection which is why the number of cases did not see a huge spike.”
The number of tests, meanwhile, have also been brought in proportion to fewer new cases coming up and lesser contacts being traced, however on Sunday too the civic body collected over 4,000 samples for Covid-19 testing.
