JOIN USCovid-19: Gujarat cities breathe but villages choke
The long queues of ambulances have disappeared and the chaos outside hospitals for beds and oxygen in cities have thinned over the past one week as official figures of a daily caseload of coronavirus and fatalities show a downward trend.
In the rural parts of the state, patients lying on cots with glucose dripping have found a roof in Covid care centres with bare minimum facilities. However, with dismal testing in rural areas, the scale of virus spread is anybody's guess.
On April 30, the state reported its highest daily count of positive cases with 14,605 and 180 deaths, the same figures on May 12 were 11,017 and 102 respectively. Along with a dip in the daily cases and fatalities, the number of testing has also gone down sharply. On April 23, the state had conducted a total of 1.89 lakh tests which fell to 1.60 lakh on April 30 and 1.43 lakh on May 12 evening. As of Thursday, the number of active cases in the state stood at 1.27 lakh, of which 804 were on ventilators, while 8,131 patients had succumbed to the virus.
"Overall, the situation has stabilised and cases are dwindling. There are various indicators suggesting this trend such as calls to 108 (ambulance service) 104 (helpline service) dropping, consumption of oxygen stabilising, bed vacancies increasing from on an average 96 to 97% occupancies. We are now focussing on rural areas where suspected cases are required to be isolated and treated," principal secretary, health, Jayanti Ravi told DH.
Until a week ago, the Vijay Rupani government was pleading with the central government for increasing the oxygen allocation from 975 metric ton to 1,190 metric tonne which, despite repeated attempts, was not increased. Due to a decrease in the cases, the demand for oxygen is said to have been stabilised and bed occupancies have also come down.
What is worrying the state government is rising cases in rural areas such as Amreli, Dahod, Panchmahals, Kheda, Mahisagar among others. The test positivity rate in these districts was recorded at nearly 10% which is worrying the health officials. Officials said a few weeks ago, the rate was hovering over 20% in many districts which have come down.
When asked about the lack of testing facilities in the villages, Ravi said, "What treatment do we get in cases of positive results - we isolate, give paracetamol in mild cases or get hospitalised in case of emergency. That's why we are now focussing on testing but finding the suspected cases and putting them in isolation centres to break the chain." On Thursday, the government announced that under "Maru Gam, Corona Mukt Gam (my village, Covid-free village)" over 15,000 care centres have been set up in 14,000 gram panchayats to isolate suspected cases.