Panchkula, Faridabad lead in daily Covid positivity rate

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 24

A total of 17 Covid deaths took place in the last 24 hours while 6,007 fresh cases were recorded including 36 Omicron cases.Three deaths took place in Panchkula, two each in Gurugram, Faridabad, Hisar and Kurukshetra and one each in Karnal, Sirsa, Ymanunanagar, Jhajjar, Nuh and Bhiwani.Gurugram alone recorded 2,057 cases, followed by Faridabad (808) and Sonepat (332).A total of 11,879 patients recovered from Covid today while the active cases have reduced to 51,864.

Meanwhile, Panchkula with an average positivity rate of 27.31 per cent and Faridabad with 26.02 per cent in the past 15 days (Jan 9-23) are the worst in Haryana. The average daily positivity rate of the state in the past 15 days has been 18.17 per cent.

Gurugram with 25.9 per cent and Sonepat with 25.09 per cent average daily positivity rates are the third and fourth-worst districts in the state respectively.

Palwal has the lowest average daily positivity rate of 2 per cent.

The positivity rate is measured as the ratio of positive cases and number of tests conducted.

As per the weekly Covid report of Haryana, the state reported 61,921 cases last week (Jan 17-23) with a rise of 17 per cent. Mahendragarh reflected a rise in cases by 196 per cent, followed by Rewari (160%) and Fatehabad (122%) in the past seven days.

On the other hand, the number of cases dipped by 4 per cent in Gurugram, 3 per cent in Ambala and 2 per cent in Faridabad.

“A number of people are not getting tested at all. Some are getting tested at home. Their number is not getting counted. Positivity rate shows a trend whether the pandemic is going up or down. The situation is getting stabilised in Gurugram and Faridabad. We have reached a plateau. Soon, the numbers will fall,” said Dr Dhruv Chaudhary, state nodal officer for Covid and Senior Professor and Head, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, PGIMS Rohtak.

The number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week. While there have been 73 deaths in the state during Jan 17-23, 32 died during Jan 10-16 and eight during Jan 3-9.

So far, 271 samples have tested positive for Omicron out of 910 (29.8%). This included 43 out of 150 (28.7%) in random sampling, 107 out of 475 (22.5%) in cluster sampling, 106 out of 252 (42.1%) samples of international travellers and 15 out of 33 (45.5%) samples of the positive contacts of positive international travellers.

Dr Chaudhary said, “The new variant is mild in terms of lung injury. Whether the infection is Delta or Omicron, it is important. We have to keep checking the occupation of ventilators and ICU beds with oxygen.”

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