Covid-19: Gujarat ranks second in positive cases, highest in mortality rate

The total number of deaths due to Covid-19 in Gujarat has mounted to five, putting the State second after Maharashtra, which has recorded seven due to the deadly virus -maximum in the country so far.

Notably, Gujarat has recorded 63 positive cases - way below Maharashtra’s 203. This puts Gujarat’s current mortality ratio of Covid-19 at a worrisome 8 per cent.

Jayanti Ravi, Principal Secretary- health, Government of Gujarat, said that most of the deaths had a similarity of being aged and co-morbid with pre-existing ailments such as cancer, diabetes, blood-pressure etc.

Addressing the media, Ravi stated that the State has identified five districts as hotspots, where it has started implementing ‘cluster containment’ strategy. These districts include Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara and Gandhinagar. “We will conduct house-to-house survey, and make random Covid-19 testing of the suspected cases at these hotspots. A radius of 3 km will be ear-marked around these cases with a buffer zone of 5 km. This area will have tightened restrictions on movements,” said Ravi, during the evening health bulletin.

She added that the government is taking efforts to provide extra protection and isolation for the elderly and co-morbid patients of these clusters. The State has collected 1,224 samples, of which 1177 were tested and results for 47 are awaited.

Amid rising number of infections and considering the criticality of the higher mortality ratio, the Gujarat government has also enforced strict lockdown for villages as well.

The State police has deployed drones for aerial surveillance to check violators. “Total 14 cases have been filed based on drone surveillance and we are intensifying this to ensure that people remain indoors,” said Shivanand Jha, DGP, Gujarat.

On the preparedness, Ravi said that there are total combined 5,500 bed-hospitals set up across the districts of the State with prominent ones at Ahmedabad with 1,200 beds, Surat with 500 and Rajkot and Vadodara with 250 each exclusively for the coronavirus cases.

The State currently has 2,761 ventilators including 1,761 with private organisations. There are currently 19,661 people kept under 14-day isolation.