Confirmed cases of COVID19 crossed 60,000 slab on Friday with 1330 more people testing positive in J&K. The deaths attributed to the viral infection mounted to 976 as 15 people lost lives at various hospitals.
Kashmir has been recording a slump in COVID19 deaths this week. Today, five people were reported to have died of COVID19 in Kashmir division while 10 deaths were reported in Jammu division.
In Kashmir, one casualty each was reported from Kupwara, Kulgam, Srinagar, Pulwama and Bandipora districts.
While two among the deceased since Thursday evening in Kashmir were below 60 years of age, two other casualties of the respiratory viral illness were young people below 35 years of age.
One of these was a 32 year old male from Handwara Kupwara admitted at SMHS Hospital. The patient was admitted with COVID19 pneumonia on 16 September and died late night on 17 September.
The other was a 21 year old male from Ladgoo Kulgam who passed away at SKIMS Soura today. The patient had suffered spleen damage due to an injury, a health official said. However his COVID19 sample had also tested positive.
A 58 year old male from Dalgate Srinagar was brought dead to SMHS Hospital. The patient had tested COVID19 positive on 9 September and was being treated at home. A doctor working at SMHS Hospital said the fresh sample of the deceased was also reported as positive today.
A 56 year old female from Kaloosa Bandipora admitted at SKIMS Medical College Hospital Bemina died on Friday. A 75 year old from Tral Pulwama passed away at Chest Diseases Hospital today, a health official said.
Meanwhile, the Kashmir division saw 658 new cases and 672 in Jammu. Total cases in J&K reached 61041 today.
The fresh positives in Kashmir included 49 people arriving from outside the UT and sampled at entry points including the Airport.
Dr Qazi Haroon, OSD Directorate of Health Services Kashmir said Rapid Antigen Test kits had been pressed into service at the airports and other entry points and ensured 100 percent testing and immediate results for the travelers. “This is helping us save on resources as no quarantine is needed till reports are received,” he said.
He said 11634 samples had been tested using Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) in the past 24 hours and it helped confirm 552 infected people. “Without RAT, we would have had to wait for many days to get confirmation of these cases and that is not good for containment measures,” he said. Dr Haroon said 244894 people had been tested using RAT till date in Kashmir of which 15886 people had been found positive for the infection.
Today, 237 cases were confirmed from Srinagar district. Of these, a health official said, 60 were symptomatic and sampled based on these symptoms. He said 60 people who had been randomly sampled, also tested positive in Srinagar today. 50 people who tested positive were in the immediate contact circle of a known case, he said. 10 defence personnel and 22 travelers also tested positive in Srinagar today.
Among other districts, Budgam had 62 cases, Baramulla 64, Bandipora 65 and Anantnag 60. Ganderbal and Pulwama had 44 and 41cases respectively while Kupwara had 52 new cases. Kulgam and Shopian had 19 and 14 cases confirmed today.
In Jammu division, 672 cases were confirmed today, 221 of whom were from Jammu district.
In Kashmir, the recoveries crossed 30000 mark as 490 people from its various districts tested negative following isolation and treatment. In all, 784 people recovered in J&K today, total recoveries reaching 39305.