Big cheer as City Beautiful scores a zero on Covid turf

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 4

The city reported no Covid-19 case today for the first time since June 3 last year. With the UT being successful in tapering off coronavirus, it has also vaccinated 91 per cent of its population with the first dose of the Covid vaccine.

The first case was reported on March 18 last year with the return of a 23-year-old woman from the UK. Ever since, the UT has braved the first and second wave with the highest single-day cases of each wave being 449 cases (first) and 890 cases (second), respectively.

The Director, Health Services, Dr Amandeep Kang, said, “We had been waiting for this day for a very long time and I am glad it has arrived. A lot of efforts have gone into bringing the new case tally to zero in the city.”

Sharing the strategy, Dr Kang said, “We increased the RT-PCR testing share to 80 per cent and communicated the test reports to positive patients on the phone within 24 hours. This helped in early isolation of these patients. We did not stop making containment zones even after Covid slowed down in the region. We increased door-to-door vaccination drives in areas where cases broke out recently such as in Sector 38 where two families tested positive. The Administration is leaving no stone unturned to keep the cases under control.”

Chandigarh has lost 811 lives to Covid-19 so far. Last month, however, the city witnessed only two Covid deaths. The monthly fatalities have never been so low in the UT.

Dr Kang said it was due to rapid coverage of the population with the first dose of the vaccine. “The vaccine reduces hospitalisation and severity of the disease and hence we saw fewer deaths in the recent past,” she said.

The positivity rate of Chandigarh last week stood at only 0.2 per cent. For every 100 confirmed cases, 0.1 are currently infected, 99 have recovered from the virus and one has passed away from the virus.

So far, 5,256 of every lakh population in Chandigarh have tested positive for the virus and 52,409 samples have been tested.

Only 6 patients hospitalised

There are 31 patients in Chandigarh currently infected with the virus, while all others have recovered. Of them, only six patients are hospitalised.

While the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, is Covid-free since the past three days as no patient is admitted there, four patients are occupying oxygen beds at Government Multi-Speciality Hospital, Sector 16, and two are admitted to the PGI.

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