Covid cases up in Haryana, Gurugram hit most

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 22

Haryana has been seeing a rise in Covid-19 cases over the past fortnight. The November 15-21 week recorded 110 cases, the highest in the last 13 weeks. While 108 cases were reported between November 8 and14, the first week of the month saw just 74 cases.

Before this, the last highest in the recent past was 139 in the August 16-22 week.

According to the district-wise analysis (from Nov 15-21), Gurugram alone reported 85 cases, making it 77.3 per cent of the total. Ten cases came from Panchkula (9.1 per cent). From November 8-14, Gurugram reported 74 cases (68.5%) out of the 108 in the state.

The district is seeing an increase in cases despite having the highest rate of first dose (124 per cent) and second dose vaccination (84 per cent) in the state.

Till November 21, Gurugram had administered first dose to 22.40 lakh people and 15.20 lakh had been given the second dose. Recently, two Covid patients died in Gurugram. They had received both doses but had comorbidities.

Chief Medical Officer Virender Yadav said, “Definitely, we are getting people with breakthrough infections in the district, but we are not compromising on testing and tracing.” A breakthrough infection happens when a fully vaccinated person gets infected.

“There is only a marginal rise in Covid cases. Earlier, we were getting eight to nine cases per day, now we are getting 12 cases per day. Earlier, we were testing 3,000 samples per day, now we are testing 3,500 samples,” said Dr Yadav. “We need to be careful. Gurugram has a high migrant population. The seropositivity rate in the district was 78.3 per cent. It is not 100 per cent. So, there is a pool which can be infected. We need to study positive cases — from where they are coming and what is their history,” said Dr Dhruv Chaudhary, state nodal officer for Covid.

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