Beneficiaries wait to receive their Covid-19 vaccine doses, at a vaccination centre, Bhondsi, in Gurugram, Tuesday, May 25, 2021. (PTI Photo) FROM 25-30 per cent during the peak of the second Covid wave, Haryana’s daily positivity rate has sharply dipped to less than 4 per cent. There has been a consistent decline in new daily cases as well as deaths over the last few weeks.
Due to the surge in new infections during the second wave, the cumulative positivity rate, which was hovering below 5 per cent in February, had reached 8.46 per cent.
The state health department attributed the curtailing of Covid-19 in Haryana to “advance preparedness, better management of resources and fully implementing the guidelines issued by Government of India”, from time to time.
In February, around 600 cases were being reported per week, which rapidly started rising in March and continued to rise consistently till the beginning of May, forcing the state government to impose a lockdown from May 3. The peak of the second wave was observed in the first week of May when 15,786 cases were reported in a single day on May 4.
Fatalities due to Covid-19 also started rising, simultaneously. In the second week of May, Haryana witnessed the highest number of cases (1,01,009), and more than a 1,000 deaths were also reported during that particular week.
During the surge period, the seven-days moving average of daily new cases was around 14,000 cases that has now declined to around 3,000 cases daily in the fourth week of May. Similarly, the seven-days moving average of number of Covid-19 deaths also declined from 160 per day to around 100 per day.
“The state has been strictly following test, track and treat strategy of Government of India in true sprit since beginning of the pandemic. Haryana is among the few states in the country having highest per million testing.
Laboratory network has been strengthened on war footing to increase the testing capacity. As on today there are total 42 government and private laboratories in Haryana that are conducting RTPCR tests,” said ACS (Health) Rajiv Arora.
“Haryana has conducted an average of at least 50,000 tests per day so as to isolate cases at the earliest and curb the chain of transmission,” he added.
Before the second wave hit the state, health infrastructure was already ramped up in terms of increasing isolation beds, oxygen beds and ventilator facilities, officials claimed.
State government also began establishing new makeshift Covid hospitals (recently two 500-bed hospitals each in Panipat and Hisar were set up) to tackle the crisis of shortage of beds.
As on date there are 11,690 isolation beds that are equipped with oxygen facilities, while there are 3,172 beds with oxygen facilities in the Intensive Care Units and 1,563 beds with ventilator facilities in the ICUs.
The government purchased 106 ventilators and distributed to medical colleges and hospitals. Further, 430 ventilators were received from Government of India under PM Cares Fund.
These were distributed in civil hospitals and medical colleges. A total of 1,000 oxygen concentrators were received from Government of India, while several corporates and social organisations too came forward and gave oxygen concentrators that were distributed to various civil hospitals across the state.
To beat the oxygen shortage crisis, 2,505 ‘D’ type oxygen cylinders and 2,418 ‘B’ type oxygen cylinders have been provided to civil hospitals and medical colleges of Haryana on added capacity since in onset of Covid.
As far as drugs/ medicines required to be used for Covid-19 treatment, an adequate quantity of Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, Ascorbic Acid, Zinc, Dexamethasone, Paracetamol were arranged by the state government.
“Haryana has procured 26,590 injections of Remdesivir (100 mg) and 325 injections of Tocilizumab 400mg/20 ml.
Besides this 160 injections of Tocilizumab have already been received from Government of India. There is adequate stocks of all drugs/injections that are required to deal with Covid-19 patients across the state,” a senior health department official told The Indian Express.
As cases started getting reported from rural areas, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar ordered a statewide door-to-door screening of rural population. Over 1.4 crore villagers living in the state’s over 5,500 villages have already been screened. The entire screening drive, which is being conducted by around 8,000 multidisciplinary teams of various departments, is expected to be concluded in a day or so.
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