Gurgaon sees first Covid death in 5 months, new cases near 200

GURGAON: The city reported its first Covid death in five months on Thursday.
A 68-year-old man with a history of diabetes and hypertension died in hospital after testing positive. The last time the city saw a Covid death was on October 28 last year. Daily Covid cases, meanwhile, continued to show an upward trend on Thursday, with 179 people testing positive for the virus.
At 688, the number of cases in the first six days of April has already surpassed that of March, when the city reported a total of 585 patients. Health officials said that apart from diabetes and hypertension, the man who died on Thursday also had coronary artery disease. So far, the city has reported 1,032 Covid deaths, of whom 706 were patients with comorbidities.
"The patient was diabetic and had hypertension. He was admitted with left ventricular failure (the heart's left ventricle was unable to pump enough blood). When the hospital conducted a Covid test, he was found to have the virus. We had a meeting with the district task force committee on Thursday, when I directed all hospitals to conduct tests of healthcare workers deployed in emergency and critical care units. All health workers should wear masks. I have also told hospitals to be prepared to reserve beds for Covid patients on short notice. Hospitals have been directed to ready their isolation wards too," said Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer.
The city now has 584 active patients, compared to 500 the day before. Hospitalisations, however, came down to six from 18 on Wednesday.
The positivity rate rose from 7.8% the previous day to 9.1% on Thursday. Health officials said 1,967 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours.
"Most Covid patients are reporting an improvement in health. But patients with comorbidities, such as diabetes and chronic lung, heart or kidney disease, must be careful as their condition may deteriorate with Covid. Such patients should contact a doctor as soon as they face complications," said Dr Arunesh Kumar, the head of pulmonology department at Paras Hospital.
He emphasised that people should take precautions like wearing masks and following social distancing. "People are still not wearing masks. In the area where I live, nobody is wearing a mask. We have to restart masking while in public places. Don't go to crowded places if not required and get a booster dose if not received so far."
At the peak of the Covid wave triggered by the Omicron variant in January 2022, the city had recorded a total of 65,289 cases, with the daily average hitting 2,106. The next month, a total of 10,679 cases were reported. The number of patients started dipping from March, when the city saw 1,959 infections. The trend reversed in April as restrictions were eased with cases rising to 5,885. May saw 7,619 cases, which increased to 8,382 in June.
Infections dipped to 5,692 in July, which again rose to 10,393 in August. From September onwards, cases started falling steadily, from 1,356 that month to 709 in October, 210 in November and 67 in December.
The first two months of this year saw less than 50 cases, with January and February reporting 47 and 46 Covid patients, respectively.