COURTESY HT SEPT 30

Dip in infections raises hope of curve flattening in Haryana

Hitender Rao

hrao@hindustantimes.com

Chandigarh : The number of coronavirus infections in Haryana decreased by 5,091 last week, raising hopes that the pandemic curve was plateauing in the state.

As per health department statistics, Haryana’s 22 districts reported 12,525 new infections between September 21 to 27 as compared to 17,616 infections between September 14 to 20. The number of viral infections reported between September 7 to 13 was 17,092 and between August 31 to September 6 was 13,267.

Additional chief secretary (ACS, health) Rajeev Arora said cases were stabilising to an extent and it was expected that the numbers will decline in the next phase.

While the number of samples tested using rapid antigen tests (RAT) and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) have also declined in the past week, health department officials said the declining infection rate outnumbers the reduced testing.

Arora said with a 6.72% positivity rate and an average daily reduction of around 5,000, the decrease should be around 350 infections per day.

“Earlier, around 2,400 to 2,800 infections were being reported every day. The number has dropped to around 1,500 to 2,000 over the last week,’’ the ACS said.

As per records, the health department conducted 1, 91,420 RAT and RT-PCR tests between September 13 and September 20 as compared to 1,70,309 tests between September 21 and September 27, which amounts to a reduction of 21,111 tests.

Explaining reduction in sampling, Arora said when the number of infections start declining, the number of primary and secondary contacts of infected patients also comes down, thereby decreasing the sampling rate. “Then again one has to go for random sampling but we have seen the public at large resists random sampling,’’ he said. Arora said the department was going to step up the RT-PCR testing again but RAT had been reduced as it was felt that it was being performed indiscriminately.

“During a recent review of national capital region districts by Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla, Haryana’s RTPCR testing overshadowed Noida and Delhi. Our RT-PCR testing was around 65% and RAT around 35%,’’ the ACS said, adding the fatality rate in the state had remained stable at around 1.06%