AHMEDABAD: The city on Sunday recorded 6,191 new Covid cases, the lowest in the past five days. It was a drop of 25% in a day from 8,194 on Saturday. At 16,617, it was a six-day low for Gujarat.
With the update, the active cases in Ahmedabad district including the city reached 52,281 — accounting for four of every 10 active cases in Gujarat.
The drop in the middle of steadily rising cases surprised experts, who pointed out that the testing figures for Saturday and Sunday were not available on the state’s Covid portals. On the ground, testing numbers have not recorded any drastic change.
“It will be too early to say that the cases are on a downward trend. After a slight drop on Friday, cases again spiked on Saturday,” said a city-based epidemiologist. “Thus, there’s no pattern here. But the most striking aspect is that five of eight municipal corporation areas recorded a dip in cases.”
While Ahmedabad had a 25% drop, in Rajkot cases fell from 1,707 to 410; in Jamnagar, from 563 to 138; in Gandhinagar, from 547 to 398; and in Junagadh, from 104 to 80. Vadodara, Surat, and Bhavnagar’s daily tally were nearly the same at about 2,800, 1,600, and 400 cases respectively.
The state’s death toll however increased to 19, the highest in the past seven months. The deaths included 6 from Ahmedabad city, 3 from Valsad, 2 each from Surat city and district, and Banaskantha, and 1 each from Bhavnagar city, Mehsana, Navsari, and Dahod districts. Ahmedabad city has recorded 36 deaths over the past seven days.
Gujarat in 24 hours vaccinated 29,481 persons for the first dose and 70,031 for the second. In all, 5.07 crore have been administered the first dose and 4.47 crore the second shot of the Covid vaccine.
