Second wave peak was 16-fold rise in Ahmedabad

Published on June 22, 2021

AHMEDABAD: On November 27, Gujarat recorded its highest number of cases of the post-Diwali surge at 1,607. Compared to that, the April-May surge saw a peak of 14,605 on April 30, nine times higher.
Except Ahmedabad, which recorded 16-fold rise (from 354 to 5,790), three other major cities recorded below or at-par with state average increases. Surat recorded a nine-fold rise (238 to 2,176), whereas Rajkot and Vadodara recorded seven-fold and five-fold increases, respectively.

“The analysis can be seen as a surge in areas outside the eight municipal corporations. The biggest takeaway from the second wave is there is a need to look beyond urban areas to ensure control of the pandemic. Compared to urban areas, there is still a smaller number of tests carried out per capita to find new cases,” said a city-based epidemiologist.

There was a slight increase in the share of the eight municipal corporations – Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Junagadh and Gandhinagar – in the 31-day comparison of Nov-Dec 2020 and Apr-May 2021. Compared to 56% last year, this year it was 61%.

Analysis of the deaths in the second wave changes the picture – compared to 87% of deaths from cities in one month of the first wave, the share plummeted to 52% in one month of the second wave. While the highest number of deaths in a day doubled for Ahmedabad during the two peaks – from 13 to 27, the increase was greater for other cities – seven-fold for Surat, and more than ten-fold for Vadodara and Rajkot.