Covid-19 resurgence in Jammu and Kashmir

There has been a 300 per cent rise in Covid-19 cases in Jammu and Kashmir in the past 11 days compared to the previous 11 days of the month as from 102 overall cases in the union territory from June 4-14, the infections shot up to 369 from June 15-25.

Three deaths were reported in the last 11 days while no death was witnessed before that for around two months. On June1, the UT had reported six Covid-19 positive cases while the number rose to 65 on June 25.

According to Dr Mohammad Salim Khan, head of community medicine at government medical college, Srinagar, the disease is caused by the variant, which possibly is a variant of Omicron. “It is self-limiting with fever, sore throat and body aches and a person gets fine within a few days,” he said.

Also read: Delhi sees nearly 70% jump in Covid containment zones in past week

What is worrying, however, is that the cases are increasing without any substantial increase in the testing rate. As against 109264 tests conducted from June 4-14, 109531 tests were done from June 15-25. The test positivity rate for the last 10 days has increased to 0.30 per cent from 0.09 per cent for 11 days before that.

“The variant is not causing any severe disease and as such people are not going for testing. People aren’t much concerned as mostly it causes upper respiratory tract infection. That is why testing is less,” he said.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 4755 - 2330 in Jammu and 2425 in Kashmir – have died due to the Covid. A total of 449693 people have recovered from the disease so far including 21 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

In the wake of a slow but gradual increase in Covid cases, health authorities have urged the elderly to go for the third vaccine dose against the disease. “It is right time to take the precautionary dose for senior citizens as it boosts immunity and enhances protection against Covid,” Covid-19 Control Room-Kashmir in a tweet said early this week.

While the first wave of Covid hit Kashmir in August-September 2020, the second wave peaked in May 2021 before the third wave in January this year.