Twelve persons died of COVID19 during the past 24 hours, taking the death toll due to the viral illness in J&K to 1742. Meanwhile, 501 fresh cases were reported on Saturday, the cumulative total now 1,12,757.
The positive percentage of samples tested between Friday and Saturday afternoon across J&K was 1.8.
The official bulletin on COVID19 said 27,634 samples were tested on a day of which 501 were found positive. The total number of samples tested in J&K reached 31,48,894 on Saturday. Although, in absolute numbers, the number of tests is lower than some states of India, population-wise distribution reveals a high per million population distribution of the tests.
A senior official said Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kits were being used to increase the coverage of COVID19 testing. Today, a sampling drive across markets of Srinagar was started by DDMA wherein each market locality would have 200 individuals covered.
As per a recent government order, the Health department has been directed to increase samples being sent for RT-PCR testing.
The official said that RT-PCR testing was currently going on at a sluggish pace across the new medical colleges.
“RT-PCR is the more accurate test and we need to use that as liberally as possible to reduce the spread of infection in the community,” a senior doctor said.
He said that very often, people who get a false negative on RAT, go on to believe they are not infected and end up infecting a number of people, many of them in the high-risk category.
He said the chance of a false negative on RAT was high.
Out of the new positives, both Kashmir and Jammu division had nearly the same case load. Today, 234 fresh cases were from Kashmir division and 267 from Jammu division. The casualties were also equally spread across the two divisions. Six people who succumbed to the viral illness today were from Kashmir division while six were from Jammu division.
After having tested positive, 469 people tested negative today. The recoveries reached 1,06,006 – 94 percent of the total cases reported.