Covid positivity rate rises by 22% in HP in 7 weeks
From 7% in the week that ended on April 4, the infection rate has climbed to 28.9%
DHARAMSHALA The Covid positivity rate in Himachal Pradesh has risen by 22% in the past seven weeks.
The hill state recorded its highest positivity rate of 28.9% in the week that ended on May 16. That’s the highest since the coronavirus outbreak in March last year.
It was 7% in the March 29 to April 4 week, while in February, the positivity rate was as low as 0.67%. Positivity rate is the percentage of positive samples per 100 tests.
National Health Mission state director Dr Nipun Jindal said of the 99,807 tests conducted last week, 28,817 samples were found positive.
As Covid-19 cases started rising from February-end, Dr Jindal said, the positivity rate also went up. By March-end, it was 3% and steadily rose after that. “It was 20% between April 26 and May 2 and 26.3% from May 3-9),” he said, adding this was when the second wave was sweeping the state.
Positivity rate higher in border districts
Dr Jindal said the positivity rate is high in the state’s districts bordering Punjab and Haryana. This is due to the high infection rate as the movement and activities in these regions are more than in the other districts.
Kangra, the worst-hit district recorded the highest positivity rate of 38.1%, followed by 37.2% in Sirmaur and 33% in Solan.
Six of the 12 districts have a positivity rate of above 30%. Mandi has a positivity rate of 31.9%, Hamirpur 31.5% and Shimla 30.5%.
At 8.6%, Lahaul-Spiti is the only district with a positivity rate below 10%, while Chamba and Kinnaur have it below 20%. Bilaspur, Kullu and Una’s positivity rate is below 30%.
Kangra chief medical officer Dr Gurdarshan Gupta said Kangra conducted 22,824 tests last week of which 8,686 samples tested positive. “The high number of tests and relatively high number of cases has pushed up the district’s positivity rate,” said Dr Gupta. Overall, since the outbreak, the district’s positivity rate has been 8.8%.
Dr Jindal said the test, trace, isolate and treat is the strategy to combat the Covid-19.
The state has ramped up testing by introducing mobile testing facility. He said this week the state is recording a dip in infections and if the trend continues, the peak would be over.
3,000 health staffers outsourced
Himachal chief minister Jai Ram Thakur said that the state government had increased the bed capacity from 1,500 to about 5,000 to cater to the rising number of Covid patients. He added that the state government has recruited about 3,000 employees on outsource basis.
He said the central government has increased the Himachal’s oxygen quota from 15 MT to 30 MT and the state government has also urged to further enhance the oxygen quota by 10 MT.