J&K had one of its highest single-day testing today with 27,700 samples being processed and reported while 560 were found positive for COVID19. Five people were reported to have lost life due to SARS-CoV2 in the 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, the death toll due to the virus reaching 1618.
Two elderly people from Kashmir division, both in their seventies died after they had tested positive for COVID19. One of them was from Srinagar district’s Dalgate area. The patient, a 70-year-old man was admitted at SMHS Hospital. The other patient was a 73-year-old woman admitted at SDH Kupwara. She was from Nicham area of Kupwara district.
Three people were reported to have died in Jammu division.
Today, the official bulletin on COVID19 stated, 27,700 samples were reported. Of these, 560 were reported as positive. Today’s was one of the highest single day testing in J&K. Most of these tests were done using Rapid Antigen Test kits. In Kashmir division, over 11,000 samples were tested as per official data, while the remaining (16,000 approximately) were carried out in Jammu division.
OSD to Directorate of Health, Kashmir, Dr Qazi Haroon said nearly 9400 samples were tested in Kashmir division on RAT kits on Wednesday.
He said 9200 samples were tested on Thursday.
Till date, over 8.3 lakh RATs have been carried out in Kashmir division, he said.
The data reveals that Srinagar district had 1.84 lakh samples tested till date on RAT, the highest for any district in Kashmir division. Over 1 lakh samples had been tested at Srinagar airport. Among other districts, Anantnag has had over 90,000 RATs carried out.
Of today’s positive cases, 247 were from Jammu division and 313 were from Kashmir division.
The cases included 130 positives from Srinagar district. Jammu district had 95 new cases.
The government bulletin on the pandemic said 565 people recovered today, taking the number of recovered cases to 97,537 out of the 1,04,715 reported till date.
Today, Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education, Atal Dulloo directed all Chief Medical Officers to improve and focus on sampling and effective contact tracing in all the districts so that the chain of transmission is contained.
He asked the Director SKIMS and the Principals of Government Medical Colleges to run RT-PCR testing facilities on full capacity. Dulloo also issued instructions to the principals of the new medical colleges where the government has started facilities for RT-PCR tests to gear up their testing capacity and test the samples from their catchment areas. He laid stress on updating results on ICMR portal on a real-time basis.