13 fatalities in Jalandhar district, but bed occupancy is falling

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 19

Like on many occasions earlier, today’s Covid figures do not clearly tell the present picture of the viral infection. While the administration claimed that it saw the biggest drop in hospital caseload with the overall L-2 occupancy falling by 111 cases on a single day, the other figures do not support a conclusion of any situation improvement.

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As against 663 cases on Tuesday and 586 cases on Monday, even today the number of corona positive cases was 661. Like day before, there were 13 fatalities from the district even today. The positivity rate was 13.03 per cent and the number of active cases stands at 5,443, which is the usual trend for the past nearly a week.

Returning to the bed occupancy data, the number of patients admitted in L2 facility today were 636, as against 747 yesterday and hence the drop. However, there was no significant change in the L3 bed occupation with 410 patients availing it today in contrast to 418 patients yesterday. According to the data available from the administration, the biggest peak in terms of L2 and L3 bed occupancy so far has been on May 15 with a total number of 1,226 patients (792 in L2 and 434 in L3) admitted to these facilities. The combined L2 and L3 occupancy as of today was 1,046, which perhaps makes the administrators feel that there could be a possible fall in the number of cases in the coming days.

ADC (Development) Vishesh Sarangal, who is the nodal officer for the purpose, tweeted the data this evening while commenting, “Biggest drop in hospital case load in Jalandhar today. Early signs of hard work put in by our doctors, paramedics, administration and everyone involved. Level 2 occupancy has come down by 111 cases in Jalandhar today”.

5 succumb in Kapurthala

The health authorities today reported 127 fresh cases. The persons who contracted the virus on Wednesday include three children. Meanwhile, five patients succumbed to the infection with the death toll rising to 422.

A total of 15,360 residents of the district have got infected so far. The district now has 1,494 active cases after 182 patients got discharged today. As many as 3,004 new samples were collected today, the report for which is expected by tomorrow evening.

4 deaths in Nawanshahr

For the second consecutive day, 80 cases were reported from Nawanshahr district and four persons succumbed to the virus. The deceased include a 70-year-old and an 80-year-old woman from Muzaffarnagar block, a 61-year-old woman from Saroya block and a 65-year-old man from Urban Nawanshahr. The total number of positive cases in the district now stands at 10,423 and out of them, 776 are active cases. As many as 684 patients are getting treatment in their homes. The death rate in the district is 2.81 per cent and the recovery rate is 89.96 per cent. DC Dr Shena Aggarwal said the positivity rate in the district was quite less than that of in the state.

Seven die in Hoshiarpur

The district reported seven more deaths due to Covid, taking the toll to 858 on Wednesday. Besides, the district also witnessed 292 fresh cases. Giving information, Civil Surgeon Dr Ranjit Singh said the number of active cases in the district stood at 2,696 and 22,633 patients had recovered from the virus.

Of the seven deaths reported today, five patients died in Hoshiarpur hospitals, while one each died at a private hospital in Mukerian and PGIMER, Chandigarh.