Srinagar, Nov 19: With at least four districts in Kashmir division showing an upward trend in the number of fresh cases, J&K had another 193 people testing positive for SARS-CoV2 today. No fresh fatality was attributed to the viral respiratory infection on Friday.
In the past 24 hours, 54770 samples were tested and reported in J&K, the official bulletin on the Pandemic said. Of these, 193 were found positive. With these numbers, 0.35 percent of the samples tested were reported to be positive. On Thursday, the positive percentage of tested samples was reported to be around 0.4. Over the past three weeks, the proportion of samples found positive, among the total tested, has increased from less than 0.2 to around 0.35. The constantly rising positive percentage is being attributed to spreading viral infection.
A senior health official, while explaining the significance of positive percentage said, “The number of cases is not explanatory of the extent of infection but if all other factors are kept same and we see how many samples test positive among a batch, we get an idea of the circulation of the virus,” he said. He said the COVID19 cases reported could come down or rise higher if the number of tests is changed. “We need to see the positive percentage and it is of course rising,” he said.
Of the fresh cases, 170 were from Kashmir division and 23 from Jammu division. This week, apart from Srinagar which has been the hotspot of COVID19, many other districts in Kashmir showed a rising trend in cases. These districts are Baramulla, Kupwara and Ganderbal. In addition, Budgam has also shown a slight rise in cases in the past week, the official data shows. Today, 61 fresh positives were from Srinagar district while Kupwara had 43 new cases. District Ganderbal reported 23 cases today.
Active cases are a rough depiction of the number of people who tested positive in the past two weeks. At present, district Srinagar has 590 active cases, Baramulla has 315 active cases, Ganderbal has 145 active cases and Kupwara has 119 active cases. District Budgam has 98 active cases as per the data. The total number of active cases in J&K is 1669 the fresh figures show, Kashmir housing 1407 of these.
The number of recoveries made in the day was 105 – 87 in Kashmir division and 18 in Jammu division.
No casualty of a case of Mucormycosis was attributed to SARS-CoV2 today. The number of vaccinations fell down to 34365 on Friday, an official attributing it to less movement of people in many districts of Kashmir on the day. Srinagar had just over 1700 vaccine doses dispensed while vaccination was higher in Baramulla, Kulgam and Kupwara. In many Jammu districts too, the number of vaccinations saw a slump today.