Punjab & Haryana breathe easy, Himachal Pradesh reels under Covid

CHANDIGARH: The Covid-19 pandemic is showing no signs of slowing down in Himachal Pradesh even when the novel coronavirus spread appears to be well in control in most parts of the region and the country.The hill state features on the list of a few select states currently having a combination of both relatively high infection rate and positive growth. Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Mizoram and West Bengal are also on the list. As per the latest two-week report released by Cambridge Judge Business School and National Institute of Economic and Social Research, working with Health Systems Transformation Platform in India, Himachal Pradesh posted growth in cases from October 17 to 30. During the period, a positive growth trajectory was recorded between 0.1% to 5.2%.Among the states and Union territories with high infection incidence and growth in daily cases, HP was the lone state to have recorded positive growth on a maximum of 13 days.At the national level, the trend of new Covid cases is likely to fall in two week’s time. However, in Himachal, the daily caseload is expected to mount. As per the forecast, the state will continue to report daily cases above 200, crossing the 250 mark on November 12. The daily case count of the state has pushed the R-value — rate at which Covid-19 or any other infection spreads — to over 1, which is higher than the national average of 0.91.Election related activities in Mandi parliamentary constituency and three other assembly constituencies and the influx of tourists are being said to be the reason for the rising number of cases.The current situation in Himachal has left the health experts in Punjab and Haryana worried as there are chances of cases spilling over due to the geographic proximity of the three states. As per the data of the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, as many as 971 samples have so far been tested positive for different variants of concern.194 New cases in region, 4 deaths:Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday reported 194 Covid-19 cases. No infection death was reported in Punjab and Haryana, but Himachal reported four. The state also reported 168 positive cases during the day, while 233 positive patients recovered. As many as 15 fresh cases surfaced in Punjab while one old death was added in tally. As many as 53,295 people were given vaccine shot, of which 2,1832 recipients received first dose and 31,463 received second. In Haryana, 11 persons were found positive, raising the total to 7,71,273 .