Worst day of pandemic in Punjab: 612+ve, 19 die

CHANDIGARH: For the third consecutive day, Punjab recorded the highest single-day spike in number of Covid-19 cases on Tuesday as 612 people were confirmed to be infected. It also reported the highest number of deaths due to the virus in a day, as 19 people succumbed to the disease, taking the number of fatalities to 46 in three days.

As many as 16 police personnel were among those who tested positive in the last 24 hours, according to the state government’s Covid-19 health bulletin released in the evening. The state has so far registered 14,378 cases with a total of 336 deaths. When this report was filed, 19 patients were in critical condition and being treated in ICU.
A total of 688 patients were discharged after they recovered, taking the tally for discharged patients to 9,752. Entries of two patients, who had come from other states to Punjab for treatment and one duplicate entry recorded in the tally on July 27, were removed. Six deaths were in Ludhiana, three each in Patiala, Sangrur, Amritsar and Tarn Taran, and one in Hoshiarpur.
For the second day in running, Ludhiana contributed a maximum number of 142 cases. Of them, 68 were contacts of positive cases and 38 patients were found to be co-infected with influenza-like illness (ILI).
Amritsar reported 73 cases, including 43 contacts of positive cases and 29 co-infected with ILI. In Patiala, 66 people were found to be infected with the virus. In Ferozepur, 37 patients were found to be positive, while 35 cases were from Bathinda. As many as 30 cases each were from Sangrur and Mohali, 26 from Ropar, 24 from Kapurthala, 22 from Fazilka, 17 from Moga, 14 from Tarn Taran, three cases each from Pathankot and Fatehgarh Sahib, two each from Hoshiarpur, Faridkot and Nawanshahr, and one each from Muktsar, Barnala and Mansa.
Of the 43 cases of contacts in Amritsar, 31 are from central jail and seven from Border Security Force (BSF) headquarters at Attari. The three patients who died in the district are aged 45, 59 and 75. All three of them had comorbidities, including hypertension, diabetes and asthma. (Inputs from Amritsar)