2nd wave starts ‘plateauing’; daily cases, fatalities drop

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 17

In what appears to be the signs of gradual retreat, the devastating second Covid wave seems to have started plateauing in Ludhiana district.

The 17-hour daily curfew and complete weekend lockdown seems to be yielding the desired results with the daily virus cases and deaths coming quite down in the Covid capital of the state.

While the daily positive cases have registered almost 50 per cent decline since May 1, the daily casualties have dipped by around 33 per cent since May 10.

The official data compiled by the district administration, which is available with The Tribune, revealed that the daily cases came down from 1,600 on May 1 to 851 on May 17, registering a dip of 46.81 per cent, while the daily deaths due to Covid reduced from 30 on May 10 to 20 on May 17, recording a low of over 33 per cent.

The case fatality rate (CFR), which indicates the ratio of deaths against the positive cases, has also dipped from the highest-ever 4.29 per cent recorded during the first peak here on September 11 last to 2.27 per cent on May 17, registering a decrease of 47.08 per cent. For the past fortnight, the CFR was dipping constantly and has registered a low of 8.46 per cent from 2.48 per cent on May 1 to 2.27 per cent on May 16.

The statistics showed that the cumulative CFR dipped from 2.48 per cent on May 1 to 2.45 per cent on May 2; 2.43 per cent on May 3; 2.41 per cent on May 4; 2.4 per cent on May 5; 2.38 per cent on May 6; 2.36 per cent on May 7; 2.34 per cent on May 8; 2.31 per cent on May 9 and 10; 2.3 per cent on May 11 to 13; 2.28 per cent on May 14, to the lowest of 2.27 per cent on May 15, 16 and 17.

The daily deaths of persons belonging to Ludhiana district also showed a receding trend since May 1 when 18 Covid casualties were reported here and it came down to 17 on May 2, going up to 21 on May 3, down to 20 on May 4, 19 each on May 5 and 6, 20 on May 7, 19 on May 8, 22 on May 9 and once again shooting up to 30 each on May 10 and 11. Thereafter, the death toll was constantly going down to 28 on May 12, 25 on May 13, 19 on May 14, 18 on May 15 and 20 each on May 16 and 17. The district has logged 365 casualties of local persons in this month so far.

The daily virus cases were also coming down with each passing day from 1,600 on May 1 to 1,404 on May 2, 1,198 on May 3, 1,347 on May 4, 1,186 on May 5, 1,257 on May 6, 1,465 on May 7, 1,223 on May 8, 1,729 on May 9, 1,470 on May 10, 1,386 on May 11, 1,215 on May 12, 1,335 on May 13, 1,320 on May 14, 1,132 on May 15, 942 on May 16 and touching a low of 851 on May 17. This has left 22,060 local residents infected in the last 17 days.