Sohial Punjabi
Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir has a good report card so far on the overall COVID situation, Principal Secretary Information Rohit Kansal said on Thursday.
“As of this moment, the total number of case in J&K is 614 of which the number of active cases is 390 – 384 of these are in the Kashmir Division while 6 are in the Jammu division,” Kansal, who is also spokesman of the government said.
He said there are 216 recoveries which include young children besides there were 8 unfortunate deaths.
He said 70,000 (Sixty thousand) persons have been enlisted for surveillance out of which over 50000 (Fifty thousand) have completed the mandatory 28 days period of surveillance.
“On the overall COVID situation we have a good report card so far. The daily positivity rate has shown a downward trend and the doubling rate of positive cases has decidedly slowed down,” he said.
There was a report this morning which showed that testing rates continue to be among the highest while percentage rise continues to be low resulting in a high doubling rate which is over 12 days, he added.
“Our mortality is just above 1%, which is quite low given the number of cases,” he said, adding, “The most notable part – over 92% of the cases can be traced. All these are positive factors.”
He said that government was following an aggressive testing strategy and continue to be among the top few regions in the country in this regard.
“While our testing capacity has expanded from 1 lab to 4 labs, the testing rate is now about 1500 per million, one of the highest in the country. We have been continuously ramping up our facilities- we started with less than 100 tests daily; a few days ago we broke the 1000 tests per day barrier. Yesterday we conducted 1800 tests. We will shortly break the 2000 tests/day barrier,” he added.
He however said that “OUR current position may appear comfortable but let me remind you that we are dealing with an unpredictable and dangerous enemy.”
“Many of our neighbouring states have learnt the hard way when they have seen their cases show a sudden jump e.g. when many of their returning citizens tested positive,” he said, adding, “It is important to emphasise that there is no room for complacency. We continue to have a number of red zones and we need to be ever alert and watchful. Premature exuberance or celebration can cost us very dear.”
