Covid cases on steady decline for 11th week

CHANDIGARH: The coronavirus infection curve in Haryana continued to flatten for the 11th week in succession with the state reporting 534 cases between February 1 and 7.

The state had recorded 694 coronavirus infections the week before. The number of total active infections came down to 883, a three-digit figure, for the first time in the past few months.

Additional chief secretary (ACS), health, Rajeev Arora said the health authorities are sampling more than 1 lakh people every week. “We tested over 1.52 lakh people last week. The testing has not gone down, but infection rate has,” he said.

The ACS said that around 1.7 lakh healthcare and frontline workers have been inoculated with the Covid vaccine. “We vaccinated 30,000 individuals on Monday, including 26,000 frontline workers,” he said.

Arora said that the decline in Covid-19 infection rate should not give room to complacency as world over the virus has made a resurgence once people started giving up Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, including social distancing, wearing the mask and hand sanitation.

18 districts out of critical positivity rate category

As of Monday, 18 of 22 districts in Haryana have made an exit from the critical positivity rate category of more than 6%. Only four districts, namely Faridabad (9%), Gurugram (7.5%), Rewari (7.3%) and Panchkula (6.3%) have critical positivity rate. “The positivity rate in these four districts is also declining steadily. The week before last, it was 9.2% in Faridabad, 7.7% in Gurugram, 7.5% in Rewari and 6.5% in Panchkula,” said an official.