20 dead, 851 test positive in Ludhiana district

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 17

As many as 851 persons tested positive for Covid, while 20 persons lost their lives to the virus today. The case fatality rate in the district is 2.27 per cent. The total positive cases in the district till now have reached 76,646.

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Those who tested positive include a cop, healthcare worker and an undertrial, while 163 are still untraceable. Ten men and 10 women lost their lives to the virus. Six deceased were from the rural areas and rest from urban. The total number of deaths from the disease in Ludhiana district has reached 1,740.

Today 54 patients were on ventilator support in different hospitals. As many as 1,190 patients were admitted to private hospitals and 223 to government hospitals.

Since the number of Covid cases is showing an upward trend in recent days in rural areas, the Punjab Government has taken an initiative to focus on containing the disease in villages.

The mass media team of the Health Department visited Lalton Kalan, Lalton Khurd and Thakkarwal villages and created awareness among the villagers by going door to door and by using public address system. Villagers were told about the importance of early detection and vaccination in controlling the spread of Covid.

“Anyone who has onset of symptoms such as fever, sore throat, diarrhoea, headache, etc, must get himself tested for Covid as soon as possible so that there can be timely detection of the disease and such a person be isolated and further spread of the disease can be stopped. Moreover, villagers were made aware of vaccination and myths associated with it were also busted,” said a member of the mass media wing.

Team members also met sarpanches and panchayat members of these villages and requested them to achieve the goal of “corona-free village”. They were asked to not let persons enter their villages without Covid negative report. They were also asked to start ‘theekri pehras’ for strict compliance of the curfew rules and paste posters related to Covid appropriate behaviour at prominent places in the villages.