PU guard, 6-yr-old in UT count of 14
Four varsity guards quarantined, 13 cases reported from Bapu Dham Colony and one from Sector 30-B
CHANDIGARH: Four Panjab University security guards were quarantined after their colleague was among 14 new Covid-19 cases confirmed on Thursday and Friday morning, taking Chandigarh’s count to 138 in 51 days since the first case was reported.
The cases came from both the city’s hotspots for the second week straight with 13 confirmed positive from Bapu Dham Colony and one from Sector 30B.
According to Prof Ashwani Koul, chief, PU security, the infected guard, who lived with his parents in Bapu Dham Colony, has not been coming to the campus from April 24. “We have given the names of four security guards who are likely to be his first contacts to the health department officials and they have been quarantined.
Among the 10 patients are a six-year-old boy, three others are family members of a reported positive case, three more from one household are community contacts of another positive case in the locality; and yet another three, including a 36-year-old woman, are contacts of another previously diagnosed positive case. The Sector 30 case is a 12-year-old girl who is the family contact of yet another case diagnosed earlier.
The last two weeks have seen a massive 400% jump in cases, from 28 on April 25 to 135 on May 7, with Bapu Dham Colony accounting for 57% of the total cases in the city and 67% of the active cases.
INFECTION RATE UP BY THREE-TIMES IN A WEEK
In last two weeks, the test positivity rate (TPR) of Chandigarh has increased from 3.8% to almost 10%. From March 18 to April 25, the city recorded 28 cases detected through tests of 734 persons, indicating a 3.8% positivity rate. However, after April 25, UT conducted 1,111 tests, from which 107 tested positive, which means a TPR of 9.6%. Also, the recovery rate in the city, once double the national average, has come down to 15.5%.
However, no case was reported from the neighbouring Mohali and Panchkula districts on Thursday.