Gujarat becomes third state to cross 10k infections

NEWDELHI/SURAT: Gujarat became on Saturday the third Indian state to record 10,000 Covid-19 infections, reaching the milestone in 58 days. According to state health department data, 350 cases on an average have been reported every day in May as compared with 143 infections a day in April.

On Saturday night, the total number of cases in the state stood at 10,989, behind Maharashtra’ s 30,706 and ahead of Tamil Nadu’s 10,585 — the two other states with over 10,000 cases. The Saturday’s increase of 1,057 Covid cases was highest single-day spike in Gujarat as over 700 vegetable vendors tested positive in Ahmedabad. On May 1, there were 4,721 Covid-19 cases in the state. The increase of 6,268 till the May 16, put the doubling rate of the infection at 11.9 days. India’s current doubling rate is 13.9 days, according to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan.

On Saturday, fatalities in Gujarat

reached 625 with 5.68% death rate. While the national average is 3.02%, 6.21 (West Bengal) with 160 fatalities and 6.1 (Madhya Pradesh) with 239 fatalities are the states with highest death rate.

An official in chief minister Vijay Rupani’s office said the government was testing every symptomatic person, has enforced a hard lockdown, created additional medical facilities in all major hospitals, and deployed additional medical personnel in containment zones.

“We are conducting roundthe-clock monitoring of containment areas and have prepared a medical database of all persons above 60 years of age in the state. Effective monitoring is the best way to check Covid,” said Ashwini Kumar, secretary to CM.

The first patient in the state was reported from Ahmedabad on March 19. He returned from Dubai a week before his test results came in. According to the Ahmedabad municipal corporation, between March 1 and March 15, around 6,000 people returned from overseas locations.

“Those with symptoms were tested as per the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) protocol, and the rest were asked to remain in home quarantine,” said an official of the civic body who did not want named.

Then on March 20, a video went viral on social media, showing a West Asia returnee shopping for vegetables in an Ahmedabad market. Several other videos surfaced, purportedly showing people who were supposed to be in home quarantine moving out of their houses.