While over a lakh Covid19 tests have been carried out in J&K in the past 10 days, 5755 among them have tested positive, the cumulative tally reaching 33776. On Tuesday, 701 new cases were confirmed in J&K.
As per information bulletin issued by J&K Government, upto 15 August, 7,85,475 people had been tested in J&K for COVID19. Since then, 1,02,652 tests have been carried out, the total number of tests resting at 888127 on 25 August. Among these, 5755 people have been found infected with coronavirus. The proportion of positives among those tested was 5.6 percent. The percentage of positive cases out of the total tested in J&K has risen from around 4 percent a month ago, in the last week of July.
Beginning August, J&K started using Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) for increasing the quantum of testing. A health official said over 10,000 people, including travelers and people working and living in clusters were tested. The tests are also being used to test people experiencing influenza like symptoms. The tests per million carried out in J&K is among the highest in India as per official data available on official sites of the states.
On Tuesday, out of the 562 cases reported from Kashmir division, 260 were detected using RAT, a health official said. He said that the remaining 302 cases were reported among the samples tested at three testing laboratories in Kashmir – SKIMS Soura, SKIMS Medical College Hospital and Chest Diseases Hospital.
The new cases included over 100 people sampled from various security camps, the health official said. The places from where a number of security personnel tested positive today were Bandipora, Kupwara, Pulwama and Srinagar.
Among the districts, Srinagar had 208 added to its positive cases total which stood at 8357 today. The new cases from Srinagar were 25 security personnel, over 30 random samples, 60 contacts of known cases, more than 70 people who had reported to hospitals with symptoms of the viral infection – fever, cough, fatigue, body ache among others. 11 travelers also tested positive in the district.
Bandipora, which has been witnessing a spike in its COVID19 cases since last week, had 66 new positives today. A health official in the district said 30 of these were security personnel, while a large number of contacts from Sumbal, Hajin and Kehnoosa were found positive.
In other districts, the number of cases reported today was: Pulwama 56, Kupwara 55, Budgam 49, Anantnag 44, Ganderbal 31, Baramulla 29, Kulgam 18, Shopian 6.
In Jammu division, 6 people, out of the 139 that tested positive today, were travelers. The cumulative number of cases in the division has reached 7413.
The number of recovered cases reached 25594 today when 389 patients were discharged from hospitals.