Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has witnessed 100% increase in Covid-19 patients’ load over the past 10 days, said doctors on Friday.
On Thursday, two doctors of the ENT department of GMCH-32 tested positive, after which the OPD of the ENT department was discontinued.
“There has been a surge of admitted patients from 30 to 57 over last week, making it 100% increase in Covid-19 positive cases”, said GD Puri, head of the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, adding that the pandemic is far from over. On the other hand, number of Covid patients admitted in PGI has also doubled in the last ten days. The number of cases in the city had come down to 20, but now, it has touched 50 again. Due to the negligence of the people, the situation has started getting serious.
“With mobility up, we are definitely contributing to accelerate the rise in cases,” said Dr Puri. Expressing concern over the consistent rise in the severe and moderate cases over the last few days, he said the numbers have been stable for over a month. However, the trend has reversed recently with numbers again rising on a daily basis and there has been a surge of admitted patients.
Stressing the urgent need to guard up, he said, “One may say that these are only two digit numbers as of now but what is really worrying is the steady and fast increase. We just cannot afford to take it lightly, more so, because the newly detected mutant strain is far more transmissible.”
Since January, 2,367 patients of Covid were recorded in the city. On December 31, the number of positive patients was 19,223 which increased to 21,590 in just 56 days. Since January this year, 26 people lost their lives from the virus.
| Date | Number of Covid cases |
| 19 February | 19 |
| 20 February | 26 |
| 21 February | 28 |
| 22 February | 38 |
| 23 February | 37 |
| 24 February | 41 |
| 25 February | 49 |
