Spread rate slows greatly in J&K; yet situation demands extra watchfulness: Kansal
“Adequate precautions are being taken while allowing stranded persons back home”
JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir Government today said that though pandemic spread rate has significantly slowed down in the UT, there was no room for complacency and the situation demands extra watchfulness.
“We continue to have a number of red zones and we need to be ever alert and watchful. Premature exuberance or celebration can cost us very dear”, Principal Secretary, Planning, Development & Monitoring and Information, Rohit Kansal, who is also the J&K Government Spokesperson told reporters here at a press conference.
He said the government will further strengthen the surveillance system and procedure. “We are conducting a 100% Health Audit for the entire J&K using Swasthya Nidhi App. and the process is likely to be completed within next few weeks. We are strongly encouraging the use of Aarogya Setu App. and so far, more than 8 lakh users have installed the App in the UT”, he informed.
“Our current position may appear comfortable but let me remind you that we are dealing with an unpredictable and dangerous enemy” he said and observed that many neighbouring states have learnt the hard way when they have seen their cases show a sudden jump e.g. when many of their returning citizens tested positive.
“We too have a number of students and labourers stranded outside the UT who have started returning back home. Adequate precautions are being taken while allowing them inside the UT,” Kansal said.
Giving details about general control measures, he said as of this moment, the total number of cases in J&K is 614 of which the number of active cases is 390. 384 of these are in the Kashmir Division and 6 in the Jammu division.
“As you are already aware, there have been 216 recoveries which include young children and we also have had 8 unfortunate deaths. Out of 70,000 (Sixty thousand) persons enlisted for surveillance, over 50000 (Fifty thousand) have completed the mandatory 28 days period of surveillance,” said Kansal.
He further said that the daily positivity rate has shown a downward trend and the doubling rate of positive cases has decidedly slowed down.
He said a report of this morning has showed that the UT’s testing rates continue to be among the highest while our percentage rise continues to be low resulting in a high doubling rate which is over 12 days.
“Our mortality is just above 1%, which is quite low given the number of cases. The most notable part is that over 92% of the cases can be traced. All these are positive factors” he added.
He said UT is following an aggressive testing strategy and continue to be among the top few regions in the country in this regard.
“While our testing capacity has expanded from 1 lab to 4 labs, the testing rate is now about 1500 per million, one of the highest in the country,” he informed.
