Gujarat now has more cases than Delhi, to become the second-worst affected state after Maharashtra.
In the last 24 hours, 247 positive cases were reported taking total to 3548.
- Ahmedabad 2378
- Surat 556
- Vadodara 240
- Rajkot 45
- Anand 51
- Bhavnagar 40
- Gandhinagar 30
- Bharuch 29
- BanasKantha 28
- PanchMahal 20
- Aravalli 18
- Patan 17
- ChotaUdepur, Botad 13
- Narmada 12
- MahiSagar 10
- Mehsana 7
- Kutch,Kheda 6
Initially, in March, the COVID-19 graph was rising alarmingly in other states except for Gujarat.
Gujarat reported its first case on 19th March, five days before the lockdown was declared. Data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reveals that new cases are rising the fastest in Gujarat- doubling every four days.
“At present, the rate of doubling of cases in Ahmedabad is four days, which means that cases double every four days. If this rate continues, we will have 50,000 cases by May 15 and around 8 lakh by May 31,” Vijay Nehra said.
The number of cases may rise to eight lakh by May-end if the four-day period of doubling continues.
In India, cases are doubling at an average of 7.5 days. If the doubling rate can be slowed down to eight days, by 15th May there might only be 10,000 cases instead of 50,000 and by 31st May there might be only 50,000 cases instead of eight lakhs. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is confident of achieving this with the help of everyone’s cooperation.
The major reason for a spike in the number of cases can be the return of people from different states, including the return of Tablighi Jamaats. Around 250 Tablighi members had come back to Ahmedabad and continued to interact with people before being quarantined.
Another reason is the higher testing rate. Jayanti Ravi, Principal Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, Gujarat informed that so far Gujarat has conducted 42,400 RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests which is higher than many states.
In Ahmedabad, 2,700 tests were conducted per million, in comparison to Delhi, which carried out 1,400 tests per million.
Although Gujarat is severely affected, the infection is confined to the state’s major five cities. The remaining districts have a few cases or are COVID-19 free. Ahmedabad is the epicenter of the virus in Gujarat. A total of about 2,992 active cases have been reported, with a death toll of 162.
State officials informed that a majority of COVID-19 patients are not showing severe symptoms. Prakash Vaghela, Additional Director (Public Health), Gujarat said that around 81% of the cases have mild symptoms or asymptomatic, 14% have moderate symptoms and only 5 % have severe symptoms and death rate is less than 5% which is not a high figure.
Vijay Nehra asserted the fact that staying ahead of the curve was important and bringing down the numbers and doubling rate.
Ahmedabad has mobile vans with healthcare officials to collect samples, going door-to-door for surveillance, conducting tests in random on some 500 beggars, police, etc.
Gujarat’s largest slum is Rampir Tekra which is in Ahmedabad with a population of 25,000. Primary screening. The more people are tested the faster the virus can be contained.
