The festive season has led to a big jump in coronavirus cases in Gujarat, with 1,125 new cases being reported on Tuesday. In 24 hours, more than 1,100 patients died of the infection across the state, and several more were hospitalised. A total of 1,90,361 cases have been reported in the state so far.
At present, there are 625 Covid-19 patients in the Civil Hospital, out of which, 475 patients are on oxygen support. These numbers are still increasing and arrangements are being made to refer them to other hospitals as well. Following the explosive increase in cases, Health Minister Nitin Patel also rushed to the Civil Hospital on November 16 and held a meeting to review the situation.
The Superintendent of Civil Hospital, Dr J.P. Modi, said that, presently, 174 ventilator beds are occupied, of which, 24 are on ventilator, 94 are on BiPAP, 68 on NRBM (oxygen per minute on 11 litres), and 160 with oxygen masks. Besides the Civil Hospital, other corporation hospitals and home quarantine patients are also on the increase.
Ahmedabad is also seeing a comeback of the coronavirus. A total of 234 new cases have been reported in the city and district in 24 hours, while 3 patients have died. From the period between the evening of November 15 to the evening of November 16, 218 new cases were reported in the city and 16 in the district. At the same time, the number of positive cases in Ahmedabad has risen to 45,569, along with 1,940 deaths. Ahmedabad Civil Superintendent, Dr Prabhakar, has called it the second wave of the coronavirus in the state.
The spike in cases is being attributed to the festive season, especially Navratri and Diwali, when people were seen walking in the markets without masks or without following social distancing norms. In fact, numbers had declined as per Civil Hospital records, but shot up by 50% after Diwali. People queuing up for Covid testing have also increased, with a lot of them being tested positive for the infection.
Besides Ahmedabad, the number of cases amounts to 180 in Surat, 92 in Rajkot, 133 in Vadodara, 60 in Mehsana, 52 in Banaskantha, 45 in Surendranagar, 58 in Gandhinagar, 34 in Patna, 25 in Mahisagar, 23 in Kachchana, 23 in Anand, 22 in Jamnagar and 18 in Dahod, 16 in Bharuch, 15 in Panchmahal, 14 in Sabarkantha, 12 in Kheda, 12 in Morbi, 11 in Amreli, 11 in Junagadh, 6 in Girsomnath, 6 in Aravalli, 5 in Bhavnagar, 7 in Chhotaudepur, 4 in Botada, Devbhoomi in Dwarka and Narmada 3-3, 2 in Navsari and the rest in Noda district.
There are currently 12,458 active cases in Gujarat. A total of 47,328 tests were also conducted in the state on Tuesday, which is 4,000 less than the daily average. However, although the number of cases has gone up, the state›s recovery rate has reached 91.45 per cent.