Ominous start to May, 62,000 cases, 1.3K deaths in a week

Vishav Bharti

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 9

With the onset of May, Punjab seems to be heading towards an unimaginable Covid crisis. In just first eight days of the month, the state has reported over 62,000 cases and 1,300 deaths. According to health experts, the situation may worsen over the next two weeks.

April proved to be the worst month ever so far with 1.31 lakh cases and over 2,100 deaths. If initial May trends are any indication, April figures will be surpassed easily. Earlier, the first wave’s peak came in September last year when around 60,000 cases and 1,954 deaths were reported.

Experts say the peak of the second wave is yet to come when the number of cases may cross 10,000 a day. At present, the state is reporting 8,000 to 9,000 cases and 150 to 200 deaths every day. Both deaths and cases are increasing rapidly.

In the past one week (between May 1 and May 8), the number of new infections has grown by an average of 2 per cent every day.

The outcome of the situation is that the state has 71,948 active cases. During the first wave last year, the highest number of active cases remained around 20,000.

The active cases are an important indicator regarding the prevalence of infection in society. Even the state’s overall positivity rate has increased to 16.6 per cent in the last week.