Morung Express News
Dimapur | February 5
Following the previous week’s high of 832 cases, Nagaland witnessed a significant drop in detection of new COVID-19 cases for the week— January 29-February 4. The last 7-day tally was 570, marking a 31 percent drop in detection.
As per the state Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme’s (IDSP) weekly COVID roundup, released on February 5, more than 70 percent of the cases were from Dimapur alone. It added, “65 percent of cases were detected from self-tests/symptomatic based testing and 21 percent were among travellers.”
There was also a drop in sample positivity, declining from the previous week’s 19.1 percent to 13.2 percent but at the district level, Dimapur, Kohima and Tuensang showed weekly positivity rate of more than 10 percent.
There was a concurrent drop in positivity in the districts, however, with the positivity in Dimapur dropping to 15.4 percent from 23.2 percent, from 25 to 14.1 percent in Tuensang, from 21.2 percent to 8 percent in Wokha, from 15 to 14.3 percent in Kohima, from 11.8 to 5.3 percent in Peren and from 11.4 to 9.2 percent in Mokokchung.
The drop in positivity was marred by 6 deaths, 5 of which were reported from Dimapur and the other from Mokokchung. The IDSP stated, “All 6 deaths had co-morbidities and only one was fully vaccinated. Vaccination of those with co-morbidities remains the most important measure to reduce deaths.”
The state further reported the hospitalisation of 38 COVID patients. As per the IDSP, in the third wave, 79 percent of the patients have reported ‘mild’ symptoms, 12 percent ‘moderate’ and 8 percent as ‘severe.’ During the second (Delta) wave, around 27 percent of patients reported severe symptoms.
Vaccine
The total doses of vaccine administered in the state rose to 14.8 lakh, including 49,659 doses administered to the 15-18 years age group. The total of the targeted beneficiaries, who have received the second dose rose 6,15,549. Further, the IDSP informed that 14,819 have received the third precautionary dose.
It said, “Vaccines are working very well against hospitalizations and deaths, but effectiveness decreases over time. It thus recommended the third dose for the 60 years-plus age group, especially those with co-morbidities, and healthcare/frontline workers after 9 months of the 2nd dose.
605 recovers
Furthermore, the number of recoveries outnumbered the number of new cases. The total recovery for the past week was 605 (Dimapur- 402, Kohima- 99, Mokokchung- 33, Tuensang- 26, Wokha- 20, Peren- 15, Phek- 4, Mon and Kiphire- 3 each).
