Covid cases rise, state told to scale up testing

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

The Health Ministry today asked Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir to review the hike in the Covid positivity rate, besides scaling up testing to achieve positivity rate lower than 5 per cent.

Writing to the Himachal Pradesh Health Secretary, the Andhra Pradesh Principal Secretary, health, and the Jammu and Kashmir Additional Chief Secretary, Health, the Additional Secretary, Union Health Ministry, said it had noticed an increase in the weekly Covid cases since last week (October 26 to November 1) and early signs of rising positivity rate for the past four weeks till October 31.

138 new cases, 4 deaths reported

Advertisement

• A total of 138 new Covid cases were reported today while four persons succumbed to the virus in the past 24 hours.
• The number of active cases has now reached 1,860, with the total number of positive cases till now being 2,24,557. The fatality figure rose to 3,749. Of the four deaths, two were reported from Kangra and one each from Shimla and Una.
• The highest number of 44 cases were recorded in Kangra, followed by 23 in Hamirpur, 19 in Mandi, 18 in Una, 24 in Mandi, 11 in Bilaspur, eight in Shimla, two in Solan and one each in Sirmour and Lahaul Spiti.

Kangra, Bilaspur and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh were flagged as the districts of concern due to rising cases of Covid-19 and positivity rate of more than 2.5 per cent, the Health Ministry said.

The Centre has noted a 22 per cent rise in weekly new infections in Himachal — from 1,201 in the week starting October 19 to 1,468 in the week starting October 26. The positivity rate in Himachal has jumped from 2.7 per cent in the week, starting October 4, to 3.3 per cent in the week starting October 25.