Covid contagiousness lowest in Haryana

Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 4

The Covid contagiousness in Haryana is at the lowest level so far as the R0 value of the virus on the week ending Sunday was the lowest since the lifting of the lockdown.

As per the weekly status report of the Covid infection in the state, the R0 value of the virus was 1.01 as on Sunday.

6 deaths, 244 new cases

As many as 244 fresh cases of Covid were reported today, taking the tally of the infected persons to 2.63 lakh. Six more persons lost the battle to the virus. One death each was reported in Gurugram, Faridabad, Yamunanagar, Jhajjar, Fatehabad and Charkhi Dadri. The maximum cases came from Gurugram (66), followed by Faridabad (28), Hisar (19), Ambala (17), Yamunanagar (13) and 12 each from Sonepat and Rohtak.

Though the report provides R0 value starting from August 20 when it was 1.25, sources said the reproduction number was as high as 1.90 in the state when the lockdown was lifted in June 2020, making the infection highly contagious.

The state, which saw 996 new cases of Covid on August 20, witnessed a steady rise in the number with equal increase in the R0 value till September 11, when the reproduction number peaked to 1.43 with 2,783 new cases coming to the fore.

Gauging transmission

R0, pronounced “R naught”, is a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it reproduces itself.

The R0 value started coming down after September 11 till October 25 when 1,299 new cases came to the fore with the reproduction value recorded at 1.09. The contagiousness of the infection started rising once again till it went up to 1.18 on November 12 when 2,788 new cases were recorded.

The R0 value started falling again and while it was 1.06 at the start of December, the contagiousness kept coming down and by the beginning of this year, it dropped to 1.01.

The state recorded 2,161 new cases of Covid during the week that ended on January 3, which is the lowest since May 2020.

Though the state has so far recorded 2,63,068 cases so far with 2,917 people succumbing to the virus, the number of active cases has now come down to 2,890, which is less than the single-day figure witnessed when the infection was at its peak in mid-November.

The average active cases per lakh population have come down to 11 in Haryana, with 14 of 22 districts recording 10 or even less cases per lakh of population.

Rajeev Arora, Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Haryana, said the improvement in the situation was largely due to the continuous efforts of the department towards identifying positive cases by increased testing and isolating them to prevent further spread.

Arora, however, advised people against lowering guard till the infection was controlled through vaccination, as a little carelessness could again lead to increase in the speed of infection.

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