With 5,443 new Covid-19 cases, J&K reports highest spike since pandemic outbreak

Jammu and Kashmir on Friday reported the highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 5,443 fresh infections and 50 deaths.

This is the first time that Covid-19 cases crossed 5,000 mark in the Union Territory (UT) as the previous highest recorded on May 6 was 4,926 cases. The record single-day new positive cases came out of 49,781 tests conducted the previous day, according to the daily media bulletin.

The UT also reported 50 new deaths, taking the Covid-19 death toll to 2,612. Friday’s rise took the total tally of the UT to 2,06,954 while the number of people recovered reached 1,60,035, with 44,307 active cases. In the first week of May, the active cases have increased by 15,948. The UT has also recorded 329 deaths in the first seven days of this month.

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Over the last few weeks, the Jammu division has witnessed more deaths than Kashmir even though the Valley is leading in infections, official data reveals.

On Thursday, out of a total of 5,443 Covid-19 cases reported in J&K, 3,575 cases were reported from Kashmir and 1,868 from the Jammu division. And of the 50 deaths recorded today, 30 were reported from the Jammu region and 20 from Kashmir.

“In the last few weeks, Covid-19-related deaths in Jammu have been more than Kashmir. There may be multiple reasons for this and a threadbare analysis is required to come to a conclusion,” said Dr Rajiv Gupta, head community medicine, Government Medical College, Jammu.

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However, he said, one of the reasons for more fatalities in Jammu was peoples’ hesitance to report to hospitals on time. “Because of social stigma, people reach hospitals after their oxygen levels have dropped significantly. This shows that the people of Kashmir report to health care facilities immediately,” Dr Gupta said.

Jammu and Kashmir is among the highest Covid-19 case density areas in the country, which has over 16,500 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 15,500. 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 first reported in Jammu and Kashmir on March 7, 2020, when two persons tested positive for the deadly infection. The peak of the first wave was September 12 when 1,698 positive cases were reported.