Ludhiana district reports 2nd highest daily Covid cases in Punjab

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 7

Ludhiana, which was among the worst-hit districts and was re-emerging as the Covid capital of Punjab, has reported second highest daily fresh cases in the state during March.

The district recorded an average of 236 daily new infections last month, which was less than 260 reported by Jalandhar.

The data of 11 worst-hit districts in the state compiled by the Health and Family Welfare Department, a copy of which is with The Tribune, Mohali ranked third with 206 average daily fresh cases, followed by Hoshiarpur 188, Patiala 173, Amritsar 170, Kapurthala 109, Nawanshahr 101, Bathinda 51, Ropar 46, and Fatehgarh Sahib 28.

However, the district recorded lowest average positivity rate among 11 high-burden districts in March. It shared the top slot with Bathinda at 5.6 per cent monthly positivity rate.

Mohali remained the worst-hit district with 16.1 per cent average positivity, followed by Kapurthala 8.5, Patiala 7.9, Nawanshahr and Jalandhar 7.1 each, Amritsar 6.4, Fatehgarh Sahib 6.3, Hoshiarpur 6.2, and Ropar 5.8 per cent.

When it comes to district-wise contact tracing in March, Ludhiana traced 9.3 per cent contacts of total positive cases, which was much less than the state average of 13.1 per cent.

Barnala topped the state with highest 24.3 per cent contact tracing, followed by Mohali 18.3, Jalandhar 17.5, Mansa 16.3, Nawanshahr 15.1, Fazilka 14.7, Faridkot 14, Patiala 13.5, Hoshiarpur 13, Moga 12.7, Fatehgarh Sahib 12.3, Amritsar and Ropar 12 each, Kapurthala 11.4, Sangrur 9, Bathinda 8.7, Gurdaspur 8.5, Ferozepur 7.4, Pathankot 7.2, Tarn Taran 6.3 and Muktsar 3 (the lowest).

The contact testing in the state during the last month also came down to 23 per cent with 29,293 of the total 1,27,089 tested, which was much less than 39.9 per cent (21,260 of 53,264) in February, and 28.6 per cent (19,259 of 67,275) in January.

In a sigh of relief, only 8.1 per cent (2,363) of the total tested contacts of Covid patients turned positive in March, which was exponentially less than 22.1 per cent (4,702) in February, and 30.6 per cent (5,902) positive contacts recorded in the state during January.

Also, the positivity rate among contacts fell down drastically to 1.9 per cent in March from 8.8 per cent recorded in the state during February and January.

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