Daily Covid cases in Gurgaon cross 200 after 7 months

GURGAON: The daily Covid infection count breached the 200 mark after seven months in the city on Friday. The last time it reported over 200 cases in a day was on August 27 (222 cases) last year. On Friday, 206 new cases were recorded.
The current spike has prompted the district administration to make wearing of face masks a must at all gatherings of 100 people or more.
The number of active patients has also jumped to 698 from 584 on Thursday. Out of these, 12 patients are undergoing treatment in hospitals, compared to six the day before. The test positivity rate has also increased from 9.1% on Thursday to 9.8% on Friday. Health department officials said that 2,091 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours.
“Cases will continue to show an upward trend in the coming days too. We have already augmented testing to 2,000 and will continue to test more people. The situation is not alarming, but people should take precautions and also get themselves tested as soon as they notice Covid-like symptoms. We advise the public to use masks and avoid large gatherings,” said Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer.
“We have to be aggressive towards masking up and following Covid protocol since the number of cases that we are getting would be an underestimation of numbers. A lot of people are opting for home testing and are not getting RT-PCR tests done,” said Dr Arunesh Kumar, the head of pulmonology department at Paras Hospital.
Haryana, meanwhile, reported 407 new Covid cases on Friday. The maximum cases were reported in Gurgaon, followed by Panchkula (72) and Faridabad (53). The total number of active cases in Haryana has increased to 1,324. The positivity rate is 7.28%.