2 deaths take toll to 790 in Ludhiana

Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, October 8

Today 89 persons tested positive while two persons from the district lost their lives to the virus. As many as 19 persons were on the ventilator support.

Those who lost their lives today include a 73-year-old man from Basant Enclave and a 64-year-old man from Janta Nagar, who was suffering from diabetes and admitted to SPS Hospital here.

Those who tested positive include 30 persons referred from the flu corner, 34 from OPDs, three were contacts of positive patients, two police personnel, five healthcare workers and two pregnant women while 13 are still being traced.

Deputy Commissioner Varinder Sharma said Covid had been controlled in the district to a great extent but the need of the hour was to keep yourself safe from the second wave.

“It has been observed in western countries that the disease has spread its wings for the second time so we need to be careful and take all precautions such as washing hands, wearing masks and keeping social distancing so that the second wave does not comes,” he said.

Meanwhile ever since, the pandemic has started taking its toll on people of the state, the Department of Community Medicine, DMCH, was enrolled by state government under its ‘Mission Fateh’ to undertake Covid testing on a wide scale and coordinate with the government and other agencies to slow down the growth of virus spread.

Dr Anurag Chaudhary, professor and head, community medicine, DMCH, said faculty, residents and staff members of the Department of Community Medicine had been regularly visiting places of high-risk areas, including factories and establishments, since 26 August, 2020, and till now, they had reported 237 positive cases from various locations of the city.

It was found that during the first and second weeks of September, the daily count of Covid positive cases detected by testing used to be in ‘double figures’. The number started declining gradually by the third and fourth weeks of the previous month.

Till date, over 8,000 rapid antigen tests have been done by the team. With this new development, the testing activity had increased at a fast pace, he said.