But COVID comes in waves, IDSP cautions
Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 6
A total of 12 COVID-19 cases were reported in Nagaland during the week. It included 9 from the armed forces and 3 traced contacts. The cases were detected from 1465 samples returning a positivity rate of less than 1 percent, as per the weekly COVID roundup issued by the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP).
Meanwhile, a big dip in monthly positivity has been witnessed during the past two months. Positivity for the month of December 2020 was 10 percent of 7200 samples. For the month of January, it was 3.6 percent of 4699 samples.
February ended with a rate of 2 percent out of 5319 samples.
However, the overall positivity rate was still high at 9.2 percent.
District-wise, Dimapur is returning the highest positivity at 12.3 percent, followed by Kohima at 10.1 percent. Only these two districts had active cases, as on March 6— 14 in Kohima, 1 in Dimapur.
As per the IDPS, 80 percent of the tests done during the week were Rapid Antigen Tests.
No deaths were reported during the week. The mortality rate was tipped at 0.6 percent against the country’s 1.4 percent.
No figures were provided as far as the testing rate was concerned.
While Nagaland may be showing low numbers for the past two months, the IDSP reminded that other parts of the country is seeing an increase in cases, for the last two week, with Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka accounting for more than 80 percent of cases nationwide.
While stating “Complacency around COVID-19 appropriate behaviors and other relaxations of Public Health and Social Measures (PSHM) are responsible for the current surge,” the IDSP informed that the Health Ministry has released new SOPs on preventive measures in restaurants, gymnasiums, shopping malls, places of worship, training and higher technical institutions, hotels and entertainment parks.
“COVID-19 comes in waves and we cannot predict when the next surge will be. This is evident from countries and regions across the globe. As COVID-19 fatigue makes it difficult for citizens to adhere to COVID-19 appropriate behaviors, it is critical to ensure precautions are taken in high-risk settings.”
Globally, it informed that weekly cases have increased after a consecutive decrease for 6 weeks. Citing the WHO, it added that there has been a weekly 7 percent increase due to surge of cases in the Eastern Mediterranean, South East Asia, Europe and the Americas.
“Possible reasons for this increase include the continued spread of more transmissible variants of concern (VOCs), relaxation of PHSM and fatigue around adhering to PSHM measures.’’
With one new case reported on Saturday, the State now has 12,211 positive cases. Total recovery is 11,952 and the total number of active cases is 15, according to the Nagaland COVID-19 bulletin.
Administration of second dose started in Peren
Meanwhile, State immunization Officer (SIO) Dr Ritu Thurr informed that the second dose COVID-19 vaccine administration for frontline workers started on March 6 in Peren. The SIO also informed that 42,628 doses of Covishield vaccine have been administered across the State till date.
826 senior citizens (60 years and above) and 98 beneficiaries with specified co-morbidities between 45-59 years of age have also received the vaccine without any adverse event needing medical intervention, Dr Thurr said.
