Patiala district reports 840 new Covid cases, 2 deaths

Tribune News Service

Patiala, January 8

The Covid-19 now seems to be strengthening its grip in the district as infections continue to rise at an alarming rate. In the highest single-day spike, ever since the pandemic broke out in 2020, the district today reported 840 positive cases. With this, the active case count, after 222 recoveries, in the district stands at 3490.

Of 840 cases, 630 positive cases were reported from Patiala city alone, while rest were reported from Kauli (59), Nabha (30), Rajpura (25), Kallon Majra (24), Dudhan Sadhan (20), Harpalpur (14) and Saman (11). It has been learnt that majority of the fresh cases, ironically, were reported from urban areas.

Officials of the Health Department said around 3,075 cases were reported from urban areas, while only 417 from rural areas. Meanwhile, the district reported two Covid deaths, thereby, taking the death count to 1,368 ever since the pandemic broke out two years back.

Dr Sumeet Singh, District Epidemiologist, said that only 59 patients had been hospitalised. He said that residents, in the face of less hospitalisation, should not take the third wave lightly. Singh said that five common symptoms of Omicron were fever, fatigue, cough (dry and wet), runny nose and eye pain. He said, “Though symptoms of Omicron variant are mild as compared to delta, however, the new mutated virus could still be fatal if ignored.”

Patiala Civil Surgeon Dr Prince Sodhi said that positive cases were rising at an exponential rate, however, there was no need to panic. He said the government had reduced home isolation periods from 10 days to seven days.

17,207 jabbed in dist

Despite the inclement weather, a huge rush of beneficiaries was witnessed at various vaccination centres. Officials of the Health Department said they administered around 17, 207 doses today. Dr Veenu Goyal, District Immunisation Officer, said that residents were showing great enthusiasm for the Covid vaccination, therefore, the district vaccination count was increasing at a faster rate with each passing day.