In HP, Covid positivity rate shoots up to 16.9%
Himachal Pradesh’s Covid tally breached the threelakh mark on Monday as 859 more people tested positive for the virus. The hill state’s case count reached 3,00,380 while the death toll mounted to 4,144 after three patients succumbed to the contagion.
One death each has been reported from Bilaspur, Hamirpur and Kangra.
Maximum 176 cases were reported from Mandi, 175 from Kangra and 134 from Shimla. Seventy-five cases were reported from Hamirpur, 66 from Bilaspur, 52 from Sirmaur, 47 from Una, 35 from Solan, 34 from Kullu, 33 from Chamba, 23 from Kinnaur and nine from LahaulSpiti.
The active cases shot up to 5,572 — the highest at 1,316 in Kangra, followed by Mandi (1,059) and Shimla (862). A total of 838 people recuperated taking the recoveries to 2,90,644.
Kangra is the worst-hit district with its case tally reaching 67,698 followed by Mandi at 41,331 and Shimla 37,994.
Meanwhile, the positivity rate in the state touched 16.9% last week (July 25-31), with Mandi, Kangra, Shimla and Kullu among the worst-affected districts. The positivity rate last week was 14.3%.
Out of 32,895 samples tested during the given period, 6,321 turned out positive. During the previous week, 24,410 samples were tested of which 5,165 were detected positive.
Mandi clocked the highest positivity rate of 26.4% with 1,091 samples out of 4,131 testing positive for the virus. Kullu recorded a positivity rate of 19.4%. Only 1,253 samples were tested in the district of which 243 turned out positive. Kinnaur’s positivity rate was 17.8% with 92 out of 512 samples testing positive for coronavirus.
Kangra, which was also the worst-hit district in terms of the total number of cases reported last week, clocked a positivity rate of 17.6% -- an increase of nearly 5%.
Out of 7,340 samples tested in the district, 1,293 were detected positive. Among other districts, Bilaspur district recorded a positivity rate of 17%, Hamirpur 16.5%, Una 15.3%, Shimla 15%, Solan 14.7%, Chamba 12.9%, and Lahaul-Spiti and Sirmaur 9.6% each.
The state government has already made the wearing of masks mandatory in educational institutions, offices, and outdoor as well as indoor gatherings. The orders were issued by principal secretary (health) Subhasish Panda.
It is being seen that Covid-appropriate behaviour, especially the usage of masks, is being ignored by the general populace, posing a serious threat to public health, the government order states. It says that the number of Covid+ cases in the state is increasing day and so does the number of hospitalisations. Persons who are immuno-compromised or with co-morbidities are especially vulnerable and a few fatalities of such patients have also occurred, it adds.
397 new cases in J&K
Covid cases in J&K witnessed a sharp drop as 397 fresh positive cases of novel coronavirus were reported on Monday. One death was also recorded in Jammu division.
As per the official figures, 122 people tested positive from Jammu division and 275 from Kashmir division, taking the total number of positive cases to 4,65,163.