GURUGRAM: In a worrying sign, the district’s weekly Covid-19 case load rose by 37% during the last one week. While officials attribute this spike to the ongoing festive season, the health department has directed all private labs and hospitals to gear up for more cases in the coming month.
While the city reported nearly the same number of Covid-19 cases in September and October, the previous month saw the number of infections declining in the last week. While September saw 1,355 cases in the first week, the weekly tally steadily rose to 1,860 in the second and 2,233 in the third. In the fourth week, however, 1,641 new cases were reported.
In October, the weekly infection figures stayed almost constant till October 22 – 1,590 cases in the first week, 1,559 in the second and 1,601 in the third. But between October 22 and October 28, the city saw 2,196 cases.
“We are gearing up for a surge in the coming days. We are likely to get more cases, maybe even 500 daily, after Diwali,” said Gurugram chief medical officer Virender Yadav.
Keeping the rising pollution and the festive season in mind, the health department has increased the number of testing camps in the city from 70 to 100. Two camps are also being organised every day during the evening hours.
Meanwhile, the city on Friday reported 398 new cases, taking its tally to 29,500. The health department said 306 people recovered on the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 25,898. The district has 3,392 active cases, and 3,190 patients out of those are in home isolation. Three people died in the past 24 hours, taking the district’s toll to 210. Out of these, 156 patients had comorbidities.
On Friday, 15 people were sent to institutional quarantine facilities. The health authorities have collected 3,040 samples in the past 24 hours for antigen and RT-PCR tests. So far, 3,54,640 people have been put under surveillance. A total of 3,51,324 samples have been sent for testing, of which 3,18,784 returned negative while the results of 2,051 are awaited.