Just about a month ago, Punjab appeared to be losing battle against COVID-19 with soaring number of infections coupled with high mortality rate and resistance from villagers to testing but the situation appears to have dramatically changed in the past week with active cases dipping down to five percent and recoveries touching 92 percent.
From 83.31 percent recovery rate on October 1 with less than one lakh recoveries, the state’s figure has reached 1,16,165 with a total 91.66 percent having recovered from the deadly contagion till October 16 (Friday).
A total of 20,228 COVID-19 positive patients have recovered in a fortnight, accounting for 17.41 percent of the state’s total recoveries.
Notably, since past week, the state has been witnessing more number of recoveries than the fresh cases every day. On Friday also, the state reported 979 recoveries against 507 fresh cases and 26 deaths in the past 24 hours.
With this, the number of active cases has also come down to 6,592 — accounting for just 5.20 percent of the state’s total confirmed cases — against 13.69 percent on October 1.
The maximum recoveries were reported from Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Mohali, Amritsar, Bathinda — the districts which has witnessed surge after surge in new cases in the months of August and September.
Of the total 22, five districts — Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, SAS Nagar (Mohali), and Amritsar — have more than 10,000 cases with Ludhiana inching close to 20,000 figure. However, the Ludhiana has just 353 active cases with already 94.02 percent people recovering from the contagion in the district.
Mohali, with 842 (7.22 percent) infections, has the highest number of active cases in the state, followed by Jalandhar with 720 (5.03 percent), and Patiala with 505 (4.08 percent) active cases. SBS Nagar (Nawanshahr) and Fatehgarh Sahib, with 87 and 92 active cases respectively, are the only two districts in the State having less than 100 active infections.
The state on Friday reported 507 fresh cases and 26 more coronavirus-related fatalities taking the state’s infection tally to 1,26,737 and death toll to 3,980.
As per the state’s medical bulletin, highest six deaths were reported from Amritsar, five from Ludhiana, three from Jalandhar, two each from Ferozepur, Rupnagar and Tarn Taran; and one each from Bathinda, Gurdaspur, Mohali and Pathankot.
The state’s mortality rate continues to over round three percent, (3.14 percent), even as its positivity rate has come down to 1.85 percent.
Maximum 68 cases were reported from Ludhiana, followed by 60 from Patiala, 54 from Jalandhar, 43 from Bathinda, 42 from Mohali, 40 from Amritsar, 37 from Pathankot, 25 from Gurdaspur, 23 from Hoshiarpur, 18 from Ferozepur, 15 from Muktsar, 11 from Sangrur and Kapurthala, 10 from Faridkot, eight from Moga, Nawanshahr and Fatehgarh Sahib, seven from Fazilka and Mansa, five from Barnala and Tarn Taran, and two from Ropar.
Of the total 6,592 active COVID-19 cases in the state, 21 critical patients are on ventilator support and 147 are on oxygen support.
