Till April 16, southern Anantnag district was the only district in Kashmir with zero COVID-19 positive cases. However, in the last two weeks, the district has seen nearly 100 positive cases and most of these are contacts of a single person, who was the second positive case (patient-2).
The Nowgam belt in Anantnag is the worst-affected with 62 cases (till May 1) out of the total 98 in the district. Patient-2 detected in Nowgam (the first was also in Nowgam) turned out to be a super spreader.
“Almost all the people detected positive in the Nowgam belt have been contacts of this Patient-2,” a health official told DH. “He had visited at least two hospitals, a private clinic, and many other places in the district, apart from working at a baker’s shop in main town Anantnag, before being detected as COVID positive.”
He said that Patient-2 is the single reason for an upward tick in Anantnag’s tally of positive patients due to sheer callousness on his part. Soon after he was tested positive, more than 257 of his primary, secondary and tertiary contacts were tracked and put under quarantine.
“Several hundred test reports still remain pending as of now and new samples were being sent for tests on a daily basis. There is supposed to be a further spike in the number of positive cases in the district,” the official added.
Anantnag has even surpassed neighboring Shopian district (total cases 76), which was earlier considered to be the COVID-19 hotspot of south Kashmir. Since April 16, there has been an average increase of 5.8 cases Anantnag every day.