Ahmedabad: Coro-nage: City passes 700 cases, 16% jump in 24 hours

Ahmedabad: With the state crossing the mark of 3,000 daily Covid cases on Monday, Ahmedabad city accounted for 773 or about a quarter of them. It was the city’s highest daily tally – or one new case every two minutes.

The city is also recording a high number of deaths – 20 in the first five days of April at an average of four per day.

“The surge is unprecedented in the sense that despite the ramped-up facilities and better preparedness compared to the last surge in November, hospital beds are fast filling up. The working population and entire families are getting infected. Due to mild symptoms, people are not careful enough in its initial days and thus become unwitting carriers,” said a city-based critical care specialist.

Almost all arms of the government are also seeing infections with over 10 firemen along with chief fire officer Rajesh Bhatt testing positive on Monday. At IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the surge continued with 28 new cases recorded in the first five days of April at the average of nearly six cases a day.
On Monday, the state government decided to give powers to the local administration to manage the pandemic including requisitioning beds at private hospitals for treatment of Covid-19 patients. “The emphasis is on improving inoculation, covering the working population and identifying positive patients at the earliest to prevent further spread,” said a senior state health department official. Experts appealed to citizens not to ignore signs and get tested.