Published on June 21, 2021
AHMEDABAD: The last time the daily Covid-19 positive cases were below 200, Gujarat had 2,815 total Covid cases and only 127 patients had lost lives to the pandemic – after 191 on April 24 last year, on Sunday the daily tally was 185 for Gujarat. It effectively meant two cases every 15 minutes. To put the figure in perspective, just a fortnight ago, the state was adding 10 cases every 15 minutes.
The state recorded a steady drop in daily cases from its peak on April 30 when 14,605 daily cases were recorded. In 50 days, Gujarat’s daily tally got dropped by about 80 times, as the Covid mortality got reduced 43 times. The drop in cases was almost similar for the districts — areas outside eight municipal corporations — and major cities. The drop for districts was 81% in the past fortnight. In comparison, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Rajkot recorded a drop of 80%. Only Surat city recorded a slightly lower drop at 68%.
In overall share, the eight municipal corporations accounted for 65% of the daily cases on April 30. In June, the average share of the eight cities remained at 48%. The mortality rate, however, increased slightly for the state with the drop in positive cases, but slightly lower drop for the deaths. In the past fortnight, Gujarat recorded 111 deaths from 6,948 positive cases, giving mortality rate of 1.6%. In the preceding fortnight, the state had mortality rate of 1.3% — 452 deaths from 34,915 cases.
Is the state past the second wave? Experts agree that it’s a downward movement in cyclic nature of the pandemic. “The estimates for the next peak vary wildly from a few weeks to a few months. When would it come? I would say that the citizens can answer it – at several public places, we have stopped wearing masks or maintaining social distancing. With such behaviour, we would surely invite the third wave faster,” said a city-based epidemiologist.
Parth Shastri Archive 