Cases dip to 2, warriors strive for ‘Covid-free’ Chandigarh

Naina Mishra
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 13

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PGI Director Prof Jagat Ram’s joy knew no bounds as the city logged only two cases of Covid-19 today. After April 12 last year, the daily case tally in the City Beautiful has hit this low.

The PGI was instrumental in managing Chandigarh’s critical Covid patients.

Prof Ram said, “I cannot believe this. I am feeling greatly relieved. At the moment, there is no great news than this.”

“Covid-19 had ruined everything for us and it is time that this virus leaves us once and for all. May this be the end of the pandemic. Now, we have only two choices – to follow Covid-appropriate for some or allow the third wave to come. It is only a matter of time that we will see zero cases of Covid-19 in Chandigarh. We can now focus on non-Covid patients as well, who have been badly affected due to the pandemic,” he said.

Dr Amandeep Kaur Kang, Director, Health Services, UT, who increased testing and tracing in the city so as to contain the number of cases during the second wave, said, “This (low number of cases) is all because of vaccination. About 71 per cent of the eligible population has been given the first dose and 17 per cent are fully vaccinated. Many people who had been asymptomatic during the second wave also got vaccinated and therefore have increased immunity against the virus now. Secondly, we have been able to trace Covid patients through 80 per cent RT-PCR tests. With constant efforts, we hope to see zero cases someday.”

UT Adviser Dharam Pal said, “We aim to vaccinate the entire population of Chandigarh by August 15, at the most by the end of the next month. Our team has been instrumental in curbing the pandemic to a great extent but the real milestone will be zero Covid cases in the tricity.”

The number of active cases has fallen to 77 as a total of 19 patients were discharged on Tuesday. In the last week, 0.45 per cent of samples tested came back positive. The recovery rate of the city has reached 98.6 per cent.