Positivity rate rises to 10% post Diwali

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 17

Three days after Diwali, the city today recorded 136 Covid cases, the maximum number of cases recorded in November so far. While the positivity rate stands at 10 per cent, the trend is suggestive of the very fact that a second surge of Covid has gripped the city after September.

The last week of October recorded 438 cases with an average of daily cases ranging from 60 to 70. At the onset of November, the Covid cases in Chandigarh started witnessing about 50 per cent rise compared to cases reported in the last week of October.

The first week of November recorded 658 cases followed by 670 cases in the second week. The positivity rate also increased from 6 per cent in the last week of October to 10 per cent this week.

Positivity rate
Last week of Oct: 6% (438 cases)
Nov first week: 8.5% (658 cases)
Nov second week: 10% (670 cases)

Experts have attributed the surge to the lackadaisical attitude of city residents in not following Covid protocol during the festival season.

Dr Amandeep Kaur Kang, Director, Health Services, Chandigarh, said: “The city was reporting 60 daily cases of Covid-19 before Dussehra. A rise in cases was seen three or four days after the festival. There was a huge crowd in the markets as people neither followed social-distancing norm wore masks. The increased mobility during the festive season is the main factor behind the surge. Besides, the poor air quality seen in the first two weeks of November may have contributed to the transmission of the virus.”

Dr Kang added: “The next week will be crucial as Diwali has just passed and a rise in infections may also be witnessed. We have stepped up contact tracing from four per Covid positive person to 10. We are asking infected persons to identify contacts with whom they had spent more than four hours.”

Mobile testing at ISBT

Fearing infection spread from travellers coming from Delhi, the UT Administration has launched a mobile testing facility at the ISBT. Last time when infections started rising in June in Chandigarh, one of the main reasons for the spread was travellers coming from Delhi and the nearby hotspot areas. Dr Kang said: “Our team faced problems in testing travellers from Delhi as they were reluctant to undergo Covid test. It should be the moral responsibility of everyone coming from Covid-hit states to watch their symptoms for four or five days and get them tested.”

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