Peak over? Daily Covid-19 cases dip by 14% in Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: Daily Covid-19 cases have started declining by 14% since May 9, prompting many to speculate if the city has crossed the peak that had been projected to be reached on May 15 according to various mathematical models.
PGI director Prof Jagat Ram too had recently said that by mid of May, the city might see a peak and then a steady decline. However, public health experts are in no rush to call it as the flattening of the curve.

“It is too early to say that the peak has arrived. We are seeing a decline and attribute it to the lockdown across the Tricity. There has to be lot of restriction to reduce the numbers from the daily 800 figures to at least 400 a day. Then we can say that the curve is flattening,” said Dr Amandeep Kang, director health services, UT.
On Saturday, the city reported 660 new cases, including eight deaths, taking the positivity rate to was 19%.
Despite the decline, Chandigarh’s positivity rate from May 8 to 14 remained 25.7%, the ninth highest in the country. Ten states have a high positivity rate of above 25%. These are Puducherry, Goa, West Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Andhra Pradesh.
Testing has declined from 3,120 to 2,948 tests per million per day in the city. “It has been a week now that the daily cases are reducing slightly. We need to wait and watch. The number of deaths have been almost steady. So, we need to be alert,” said a public health expert. He said, “Until the cases decrease in the adjoining states of Haryana and Punjab, one can then feel relaxed with the reduction in the cases.”