UP: Rising Covid-19 positive cases in Prayagraj puzzle officials, 45 cases reported on Sunday alone

PRAYAGRAJ: Detection of around 300 coronavirus cases in a short span of a fortnight has left the authorities of the health department worried who are running from pillar to post to find out exact causes behind rapid spread.
Till June 30, the city had recorded only 286 Covid-19 positive cases while the graph on July 11 stood 578. Ironically, around 90 percent of the cases reported between July 1 and July 12 were from the old city, semi urban and posh localities like Civil Lines and the list of infected people also included bank employees, policemen and healthcare professionals.
Health officials, however, claimed that teams are working overtime to enlist the areas in urban pockets where maximum number of Covid-19 patients were reported between July 1 and 12. The door to door campaign being taken out by the health authorities from July 1 to 15 would also help them to list about the patients who came in contact with any positive persons .
From July 1 to11, 277 persons have tested positive for Covid-19 in the city and over 90% of them were residents of either old city or upscale localities like Civil Lines, Tagoretown, Georgetown and Lukerganj. The sudden rise in the number of novel coronavirus cases has also put a major dent in Prayagraj district’s recovery rate — which dropped from 72% to 58.47 % till July 11.
According to data released by the health department, as many as 578 Covid-19 cases were recorded in the city by Saturday night. Of these, 338 patients have recovered and have been discharged, while 18 have succumbed to the disease so far. Till Saturday, the number of active cases in the city was 222.
Health department data shows that on July 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5, 6, 7, 8 , 9, 10 and 11 was 10, 16, 31, 22 ,27, 22, 5, 8 , 52, 49 and 35 cases were reported respectively. A senior health official said, “Officials of the health department are focussing on pockets where more positive cases were reported in fortnight and are also taking up a massive awareness campaign”. He, however, added that an antigen rapid test kit has also helped health authorities to speed up testing and as a result, more cases were reported”.
Out of 35 cases reported on Saturday, majority are from old city and semi urban pockets. The city has now more than 30 new hotspots in Prayagraj within the past one week. The first Covid-19 positive case was detected on April 5 and it took around 55 days to reach the graph 100 on June 1. However, the cases of coronavirus started suddenly rising in Mid June and crossed the 500 mark on July 10.