Jammu and Kashmir reports highest ever deaths due to Covid-19 in a single day

At 65 deaths, Jammu and Kashmir reported it’s highest ever fatalities on a single day due to Covid-19 on Tuesday, taking the total tally to 2,847.

Official data shows 65 Covid patients died in the last 24 hours in the Union Territory (UT) while 4,352 Covid cases were also reported during the same period. The previous highest death toll was recorded on May 8 when 60 people died due to the disease.

Read | J&K to pay pension to senior citizens who lost earning member due to Covid-19

While the recovery rate stands at just over 76%, the active cases crossed the 50,000 mark for the first time since the pandemic began last March. Out of total 2,24,898 cases, 50,701 are active positives while 1,71,350 patients have recovered so far. Out of 4,696 patients admitted in hospitals in J&K, 2,706 are on oxygen support and 394 are on ventilators, the official figures reveal.

Since May 1, the UT has witnessed 564 deaths and 48,815 positive cases. The surge in Covid cases in recent weeks have led to what is now being called a deadlier second wave of the pandemic.

The test positivity rate, which is considered a crucial metric to gauge the spread of an infection in a region, has also shot up sharply over the past few weeks. 11 out of every 100 people tested have been found positive in J&K in May, depicting the widespread SARS-CoV2 infection here.

The big jumps in the positive cases and the mortality continue to come amid lockdown across J&K since April 29.

Varun HK

Experts say cases have escalated in a big way in the last few weeks and the situation is very serious. They attributed the rise in infections in the UT to poor adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour such as masking and social distancing, and to potential impacts of the mutant variants of the coronavirus.

“Mutant variants are definitely one of the main factors behind the current surge across India and J&K can’t be isolated from it,” a senior doctor at tertiary-care SKIMS hospital in Srinagar told DH.

Jammu and Kashmir is among the highest Covid-19 case density areas in the country which is nearly 18,000 cases per million of the population. According to the 2011 census, J&K’s population is 12.5 million.

The national average per million population so far is over 16,648. With poor health infrastructure and climatic conditions Valley also becomes one of the most high-risk zones for the coronavirus outbreak.

The coronavirus outbreak was reported in Jammu and Kashmir on 7 March 2020, when two persons tested positive for the deadly infection. The peak of the first wave was September 12 when 1698 positive cases were reported.