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Gujarat on Monday recorded highest daily addition of new cases as 998 new Covid-19 cases were reported from across the State in the past 24 hours.
The State government’s heath bulletin showed 20 deaths and 777 recoveries in past 24 hours taking the total death toll in the State at 2167 with 35,659 recoveries. Gujarat has reported total 49,439 Covid-19 positive cases so far till Monday.
Adding to the worry for the State administration is the growing percentage of cases coming from the districts. For Monday, of the total 998 cases, 540 cases were reported from the eight municipal corporation areas, including Surat (209), Ahmedabad (178), Vadodara (60), Rajkot (40), Bhavanagar (26), Jamnagar (13), Gandhinagar (8) and Junagadh (6), while 458 cases were from districts / rural areas including Mehsana, Bharuch, Surendranagar, Patan, Gir Somnath, Panchmahal, Banaskantha, Kheda, Dahod, Navsari among others.
The data shows, currently nearly 46 per cent of the total cases reported in the State are reported from districts/rural areas. This ratio was 29 per cent at the beginning of this month. On July 1, Gujarat reported total 675 cases, of which 480 were from the eight corporation areas, while 195 came from districts.
Notably, the State has significantly enhanced its testing both in rural and urban pockets. For the 10-day average, Gujarat has tested 9964 samples (July 11-20 period), while it was testing average 5309 samples in the corresponding 10-day period last month. On Monday, it tested 12,369 samples across the State.
The data also shows that coronavirus infections have spread faster and deep in the rural areas/districts even as big urban pockets like Ahmedabad showed improvement in reporting new cases.
The spread of the virus is clearly taking a toll on the business activities at the districts, which is primarily agriculture trade at the APMCs. One of the State’s largest market yard at Unjha has announced complete lockdown for a week starting Monday. Unjha retail market will also remain closed voluntarily as the town has reported spurt in the Covid -19 cases and dozens have been put under home-quarantine.
Other neighbouring APMCs including Himmatnagar, Palanpur, Mandal besides Vav, Bhabar market yards in North Gujarat, Mahuva in Bhavnagar district of Saurashtra have suspended auctions for the period ranging from 7-15 days.
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