24 Covid deaths reported in J&K
SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday reported 24 Covid-19 related deaths, lowest daily fatalities in 38 days, and 1,718 fresh cases taking the overall case tally to 2,94,078 and fatalities to 3,963.
Of the deaths in the UT, seven were reported in the Jammu division and 17 in Kashmir. Of the new cases, 1,133 were from Kashmir and 585 from Jammu, besides 23 travellers.
The number of patients who were cured in the UT on Wednesday was 3,391, including 2,064 from Kashmir and 1,327 from Jammu. The active cases dropped to 31,579 from the highest-ever active cases of 52,848 on May 13.
The overall number of people who recovered reached 2,58,536, improving the recovery rate to 87.91%.
Officials said 45,753 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours in the UT with the overall number of tests reaching 8.65 million.
With 320 cases, Srinagar had the highest number of new cases, followed by 169 in Jammu, 158 in Pulwama, 137 in Budgam and 103 in Anantnag. Jammu has the highest number of 1,078 fatalities, followed by Srinagar with 781 deaths.
‘Complete vaccination of 45+ by june-end’
New chief secretary of the UT, Arun Kumar Mehta, on Wednesday chaired a meeting to review the Covid containment measures including progress of vaccination drives.
Mehta directed achieving universal vaccination of 45 and above age group by June-end. He directed the health and medical education department to prioritise and saturate the targeted groups of vulnerable population in 18-45 age categories, and organise systematic vaccination drives for remaining people on arrival of the next consignment of vaccines.
The department was asked to strengthen the panchayat-level Covid care centres as grid of Covid-related services by facilitating testing and lifting at least 10 samples per day towards early detection of cases and subsequent establishment of micro-containment zones in cases of high positivity rate.