Punjab sees 164 cases in a day, 145 have Nanded link
STEEPEST SPIKE Amritsar, Ludhiana hotspots of pilgrim infection
CHANDIGARH/LUDHIANA/AMRITSAR: Punjab witnessed the sharpest single-day in Covid-19 cases on Thursday as the state recorded 164 infections, including 145 Hazur Sahib pilgrims who were brought back from Nanded in Maharashtra over the last four days. This is first ever three-digit jump in Covid-19 cases in a day in the state, which has now 544 infections.
Amritsar, Ludhiana and SAS Nagar were the main contributors to the Thursday tally with 76, 48 and 13 cases, respectively.
Seventy-six people tested positive for Covid-19 at Amritsar’s Government Medical College (GMC) on Thursday and all of them are Hazur Sahib pilgrims, Punjab medical education and research Minister OP Soni confirmed. With this, the district’s count went up from 14 to 90.
Ludhiana recorded 48 cases on Thursday, of which 37 patients are Hazur Sahib-returnees, while 10 of the 13 people who tested positive in Mohali also had Nanded link.
The border district of Tarn Taran recorded seven Covid-19 cases, including three women, and all had returned from Hazur Sahib in the recent days. With this, the total number of patients in the district has risen to 14.
Four cases were reported in Kapurthala and three of them have Nanded link. Three members of family, including a 12-year-old, who tested positive on Thursday in Gurdaspur, had also returned from Nanded.
Of the two infections detected in Sangrur, one was Hazur Sahib pilgrim. Muktsar reported three cases and all of them had been brought back from Nanded recently. One person was declared positive for the virus on Moga and another in Ferozepur.
One of the three cases reported in Jalandhar also has Nanded link, while a pilgrim was found positive in SBS Nagar. Rupnagar recorded two cases on Thursday and both of them are Hazur Sahib pilgrims and Patiala also recorded a patient with Nanded pilgrimage history.
CHANDIGARH/ROHTAK: Haryana recorded its second highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases and reported fourth death due to the infection on Thursday.
28 new cases — 18 from Jhajjar, seven from Faridabad and three from Gurugram — took the state’s tally to 339.
The death was reported from Faridabad. According to senior doctors, the 68-year-old male patient, who was admitted to ESI hospital, was diabetic and suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, besides hypertension.
Jhajjar’s Bahadurgarh has turned into a new virus hotspot after 17 cases were detected there on Thursday. All new patients have been sent to isolation ward at PGIMS, Rohtak.
These include 16 people associated with Bahadurgarh vegetable market, who frequently visited Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi and a nurse.
The seven fresh cases of Faridabad
include one with Tablighi Jamaat link, the wife and son of an already infected person who was associated with a private hospital, a woman social worker engaged with a Delhi-based organisation and a 72-year-old man who had been visiting Delhi till recently.
In Gurugram, among the three new positive cases, two are said to be employees of a private hospital while the third patient is a woman, whose husband had on Wednesday committed suicide. The reasons behind his extreme step were being ascertained by the local police.
The Thursday’s spike is the second highest in Haryana since March 16, when the first Covid-19 case was reported from Gurugram. It was on April 7 that Haryana witnessed 33 positive cases – all of whom were either Tablighi Jamaat attendees or their contacts. Meanwhile, with the discharge of 10 more patients — four each from Nuh and Panchkula and two from Gurugram — the number of total cured persons in the state swelled to 235.