Puducherry: Recoveries outnumber new cases, doubling time 40 days

PUDUCHERRY: The doubling rate of the Covid-19 cases reduced to 40 days in Puducherry on Monday. The doubling rate dipped to as low as 15 days during the peak of the first wave of infection in August last year.
While the Union territory had reported 42,949 cases until April 7 this year, it doubled to 85,952 on May 17 — in 40 days.
On Monday, the UT reported 1,446 fresh cases, 1,701 recoveries and 28 deaths in the 24 hours ending at 10am on Monday, leaving behind 17,383 active cases. Of them, 15,281 are in home isolation and treatment.
Puducherry headquarters continued to report most fresh cases (1,210), followed by Karaikal (147), Yanam (78) and Mahe (11). Puducherry headquarters also has the maximum active cases with 14,095, followed by enclaves Karaikal (1,979), Yanam (1,054) and Mahe (255).
The 28 deaths took the UT’s toll tally to 1,179. Twelve of the patients reported dead on Monday did not have any comorbidities and all 28 deaths were in Puducherry headquarters. The fatality rate of the infection in the UT os 1.4%.
The territory has so far reported 85,952 cases and a recovery rate of 78.4%, which is less than the national average of 84.1%. Puducherry currently has 20.2% active cases, which is higher than the national average of 14.1%.
The positivity rate of the samples (8,056) tested on Monday stood at17.4%. Healthcare authorities have so far administered the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine to 1.81 lakh people and both doses to 49,822.
Meanwhile, the Puducherry administration has decided to increase oxygen beds at the Indira Gandhi government medical college and research institute (IGMC) to 300, besides expediting work to set up piped oxygen supply there.
All pharmacies have been asked to e-mail the price list of gadgets including pulse oximeter, oxygen concentrators to medicaldevices-nppa@gov.in within seven days, said a direction by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on Saturday.