Positivity rate in Gurugram nearly double the national average

Norms on plasma therapy expected next week: CMO

Positivity rate in Gurugram had come down from more than 13% a few days back to around 11% now, but was still above the national average of around 6%.

Though Gurugram has the highest recovery rate of 83% nationwide, the positivity rate, which is the number of samples testing positive per hundred, is almost double the national average, Chief Medical Officer Virender Yadav said here on Friday.

He also announced that guidelines on setting up of plasma bank and plasma therapy for COVID-19 patients were expected next week.

Mr. Yadav, in a weekly joint press conference with Deputy Commissioner Amit Khatri and Municipal Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh, said there were only 242 patients under treatment at various hospitals in the district for COVID-19, including 36 critical patients in the ICU or on ventilator support. He added the number of critical patients had come down considerably from around 100 a few days back. He attributed the high recovery rate to the fact that most of the patients in Gurugram were asymptomatic.

The CMO said the positivity rate had come down from more than 13% a few days back to around 11% now, but was still above the national average of around 6%. He hoped that it would scale down to 10% by coming Monday.

30,000 samples taken

Mr. Yadav informed that more than 30,000 samples were taken for testing in Gurugram over the past two weeks, probably the highest in the country after the Delhi-NCT. It included the rapid antigen tests and the samples taken by the private laboratories as well. “Around 8,000 tests have been conducted in Large Outbreak Regions alone and Patel Nagar area has the highest positivity rate. Around 1,000 tests have been conducted in Sohna, and it too had recorded a positivity rate of 10%,” said Mr. Yadav. He added the in-house capacity of Gurugram Civil Hospital for testing samples was now 500 and could be augmented to 700, if needed.

Of the 16,000 rapid antigen tests done over the past two weeks, after its introduction last month, 475 have their results positive. Mr. Yadav said that success rate of rapid antigen test was around 60-70% and the RT-PCR test was recommended only in case a symptomatic patient tested negative.

Mr. Khatri said the forecasts being made on the number of possible cases in Gurugram proved wrong and the pace of infection slowed down despite an increase in number. He attributed it to the joint efforts of all agencies, including the police, the health department and the municipal corporation. Mr. Singh said the strategy of the administration was three T’s: Test, Track and Treat. He added that around 5-8 % COVID-19 patients were untraceable on account of wrong phone numbers and address.