GURUGRAM: At 104, active Covid cases in the city are at a five-month high. The last time the city had more than 100 active cases was on July 4.
Since then, there had been a slowdown in average cases, which picked up again after the season of festivals and weddings.
The city has already added 147 Covid cases in the first 12 days of December. Since the second week of November, it has been adding more than nine cases daily on an average. The figure has risen to 12 this month.
Although the average cases have gone up, the positivity rate is still around 0.5%. Officials said the rise in the number of daily cases was because of increased testing in the wake of concerns over the Omicron variant.
“Gurugram, which was carrying out 3,000 tests daily in November, is examining 4,000 samples on an average now. So, there is a slight rise in daily cases. But the positivity rate hasn’t changed much. The situation is under control,” said Virender Yadav, the chief medical officer.
In the past 24 hours, the health authorities have collected 4,206 samples for antigen and RT-PCR tests. So far, 22,08,328 samples have been sent for testing in the city, of which 20,22,277 were negative while the results of 1,721 are awaited.
Hospital admissions, too, haven’t shown much of a difference in the past two weeks. At present, six Covid patients are in hospital and 98 in home isolation.
On Sunday, a total of 17 people were found to have been infected with the virus, taking the tally to 1,81,845. The health department said 11 patients had recovered on Sunday, pushing up the total recoveries to 1,80,816. So far, 925 people in the city have died of Covid.
The health department urged residents to follow the Covid protocols in public places as cases are likely to go up with the dip in temperature. “There has been a general laxity among the people about safety protocols, which is also the reason for the rise in cases. We have been observing that people, in many cases, are not following Covid-appropriate behaviour,” said Yadav. Most of the new Covid patients, he added, had mild infection.
On Monday, meanwhile, 45 government session sites will be set up for vaccination — 39 for Covishield, five for Covaxin and one for Sputnik V.
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