Dip in cases, vaccination will restore normalcy, say experts

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 22

The Covid-19 cases are continuously declining with only one per cent of the total infections remaining active in the city. This coupled with the vaccination drive, initiated on Saturday, will drive off the Covid-19 transmission and bring life back to normalcy, feel experts.

In the past two weeks, the number of Covid-19 infections has dropped further by 26 per cent. The average infections reported daily range between 25 to 40 cases.

City under WHO epidemic control line

As many as 716 cases have been reported in the past 14 days in contrast to 972 cases in the previous fortnight. The positivity rate this week remained three per cent, while it was 4.7 per cent in the preceding week. According to the WHO advisory issued in May, a positivity rate of less than five per cent for two weeks indicates that an epidemic is under control.

Dr Rajesh Kumar, former head of the School of Community Medicine, PGIMER, said, “The entire country is witnessing a downward trend in terms of the Covid-19 cases, especially the northern part of India. Chandigarh has been continuously showing a declining trend from the past two months. Such is the nature of any epidemic as it tends to come under control after reaching the peak. It then becomes seasonal and spreads in specific parts.”

“As far as Chandigarh is concerned, the mobile population residing within slums or colonies has already been infected. This may have reduced the transmission to a greater extent. The vaccination will further drive off transmission and it is expected that we may steer towards normalcy,” Dr Kumar added.

Dr Amandeep Kaur Kang, Director, Health Service, Chandigarh, said, “If this vaccine is able to cover 60 to 70 per cent population as planned by the Government of India, we will achieve herd immunity and the Covid-19 transmission will be halted.”

In the last one week, the number of new infections has grown by an average of 0.2 per cent every day.

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