Medical staff of PCMC conduct random covid-19 antigen tests at Nigadi on Friday. (Express photo by Rajesh Stephen) FOR THE third consecutive day on Friday, the industrial city of Pimpri-Chinchwad registered a massive jump in Covid-19 cases. As many as 1,000 positive cases were reported on Friday, a figure that was last reported six months ago.
However, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) administration said a majority of these cases are “mild ones” and do not require hospitalisation.
The spike in positive cases started from this month. Last month, the positive cases had gone below 50 on a daily basis. On January 1, 112 positive cases were registered. It then jumped to 590 (on Wednesday), 817 (Thursday) and finally 1,000 cases on Friday.
Active cases in the city are also following the same trajectory. On Friday, more than 3,115 active cases were registered, which is nearly an eight-fold jump in seven days. The positivity rate has also been on an upward trend.
In December, the positivity rate had gone below 1 per cent for the first time in 18 months. Now, the positivity rate is over 10 per cent within a period of seven days.
Dr Laxman Gofane, head of the PCMC’s medical department, told The Indian Express that they expect cases to rise further. “This is the trend everywhere in the world. Be it in South Africa or in the UK, the cases had first gone up suddenly and then came down. We also expect this will happen on similar lines… The cases will rise and then there will be a big dip,” he said.
Meanwhile, Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil, in a Facebook live session, urged citizens not to panic in view of rising Covid cases.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
