Covid cases in Gurgaon near 9,000 in April, 14 times March tally

GURGAON: The city reported 113 new Covid cases on Sunday, bringing the month's tally to 8,979, which is 14 times higher than the cases recorded in March - 584.

The positivity rate was 8.75 per cent on Sunday as compared to Saturday's 9.63 per cent. Gurgaon currently has 1,588 active cases, out of which 27 patients are hospitalised.

Gurgaon has been witnessing a dip in cases from April 25, however, it is advisable to keep the guards up because of the changing weather.

Since the daily cases started increasing in mid-March, the city's positivity rate touched 18.43 per cent on April 17. It hovered within the 16 per cent-band (lowest being 16.18 per cent on April 22 and highest being 16.97 per cent on April 19), then from April 24-27 it was at 10 per cent and April 29 onwards it dropped to 9 per cent.

Dr Manoj Goel, director, pulmonology, Fortis Hospital, said, "We have seen around 15 Covid cases in this week in OPD. During the peak, the OPD witnessed around 25 cases per week. The cases are coming down. Even hospitalisation of Covid cases is low at present. This week, we saw 1 or 2 Covid hospitalisations. At the peak, we had eight such admissions."

Doctors also said that the number of patients with flu-like symptoms have come down. "During the peak, our OPD was seeing more than 40 patients in a week, but now around 15 patients having symptoms like fever, cough, bodyache, headache, fatigue, cold, stomach infections are visiting the hospital. As the season changed during March, patients with seasonal viral illness were expected, fortunately, it is not the case anymore," said Dr Manish Rathi, deputy medical officer, at Sector 10 hospital.

"We are working to bring the positivity below 5 per cent. The present virus is transmissible and thus people need to take precautions. It is not the question of whether there is a decline in cases or not. We can curb the spread only by following protocols," said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.

Scratchy throat, fatigue, fever, cough, body aches, headaches, skin rash and stomach cramps - doctors in the city said that these are some of the prominent symptoms of patients infected with Covid.

Dr. Kuldeep Kumar Grover, head of critical care & pulmonology, CK Birla Hospital, Gurgaon, said, "Two or three patients with severe Covid infection are admitted to our hospital. Maximum cases are mild which are treated in OPD."