In six weeks, J&K sees 30 fold increase in Covid-19 cases

After remaining flat for two months, the Covid-19 case graph in Jammu and Kashmir has seen over a 30-fold increase in the last six weeks.

From the third week of March, a sharp rise in cases was witnessed. In less than six weeks, the daily case tally has risen from around 150 to 4650 – over a 30-fold increase. In the previous year, the peak was reached on September 12 when the Union Territory (UT) recorded 1,698 new cases. Post this, the cases started declining gradually and plateaued in January 2021.

While the government maintains that no significant mutant strains have been found in J&K, experts believe that the exponential surge can’t take place without a major change in the circulating strain.

Dr Saleem Khan, head department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar said the surge after the previous high sero-prevalence in Kashmir was an indicator that the immunity had “either waned out or was not there for this virus”.

“There may be many strains circulating presently. Viruses change often and mutations are quite common, especially in influenza-causing ones,” he said.

Dr Naveed Shah, head department of Chest Medicine at the GMC Srinagar, said there was a delay in getting the reports of samples that they send for genome sequencing. “We do collect samples, routinely and on suspicion also but probably due to the load on the labs, it takes very long to get a report,” he said.

Since November 2020, as per the J&K government figures, 118 samples had been tested and reported in Kashmir. Of these, only one had been found positive for a mutant variant. The mutant, N440K, has recently made headlines across the country.