Chandigarh, March 7
The surge in coronvirus cases in the UT continues on Sunday with the city reporting 80 new cases of the infection during the past 24 hours. This is less than 122 cases reported on Saturday but is still a cause for a serious concern for the health authorities.
With this, the number of corona cases in the city has reached 22318.
Similarly, the active case ratio has seen an exponential rise in the last three weeks to reach 3% of the total cases after falling to 1% in mid-February. The city now has 710 active cases of the pandemic. While 21,208 (95.5%) patients have recovered, 355 (1.5%) have died so far.
Meanwhile, the Centre has told the local health authorities to increase the proportion of RT-PCR tests, expand the vaccination drive and take samples from the community to check for mutations in the virus. This was suggested by the health ministry and Niti Aayog during a review of the Covid-19 situation in a few states and UTs.
UT administrator VP Singh Badnore has also expressed concern over the “alarming and worrisome” rise in Covid-19 cases. “After giving such a good fight to Covid, we are getting complacent and forgetting the Covid appropriate behaviour. My appeal is to follow health advisories, “ he said on Twitter.
A health official said that said that the number of tests being conducted has increased but the proportion of rapid antigen testing is more. It stands at around 35%. We will push it up to 50% of the total tests being conducted. RT-PCR (Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests are more reliable than rapid antigen tests, which are cheaper and give quicker results.
The number of vaccination centres are also set to increase with focus on the peripheral areas and colonies, where a majority of the population resides. At present, the drive is being carried out at 27 sites, including private hospitals.
