Srinagar: Continuing the trend of rising cases, 165 people tested positive in J&K today, the majority from district Srinagar. While there has been a minor variation in positive percentage, in comparison to October, more deaths have taken place over a shorter period in November.
Today, there was a major increase in testing in J&K and 44300 samples were tested in 24 hours as against less than 40,000 in the previous week. However, the day’s positive percentage increased to 3.7, a major spike. However, there has been very little variation in the cumulative positive percentage in the past one month. In the first week of October, between 30 September and 7 October, 3,37,033 COVID19 tests were carried out and reported in J&K, analysis of Government released data shows.
Among these samples, 822 were found positive, thus a positive percentage of 0.24 during this period. The death toll in the UT increased from 4422 to 4426, 4 casualties in a week.
In comparison to this reference period, the first week of November has already witnessed 8 deaths in the UT, the death toll 4440 now. In the past one week, 2,73,664 samples were tested, over 6000 less than that of October. Of these, 827 have been reported to be positive, the data states. The positive percentage of samples in November has increased by a slight of 0.06.
Many doctors speaking to Greater Kashmir have expressed concern over the sudden spurt in deaths in the past few days suspecting that it could be a new variant. “If the number of positive cases is not changing much and we have a spurt in deaths, that could mean two things – either we are not able to detect as many cases as there are, or there is a variant that is causing more fatality,” a senior medico wishing anonymity said. He said the Government needs to do an audit of deaths and ensure that testing is adequate in places where there is more circulation. “We need to restart random sampling in Srinagar’s markets and other places such as hospitals,” he said.
District Srinagar today had a major increase in the number of cases. Its positive cases today were reported to be 87. On Saturday, the district had 79 new cases. District Baramulla too had 26 new cases, an increase from its trend in the past two weeks. Of the 165 cases in the UT, 156 were reported from Kashmir division alone. District Bandipora and Ganderbal had 13 new cases each. The 10 districts of Jammu division had only 9 cases cumulative.
The active cases of Srinagar increased to 592 today. The official bulletin on COVID19 said there were 1153 active cases in the UT.