With the falling number of active Covid-19 which this month are half of previous month’s numbers, the Director of PGIMER, Dr Jagat Ram is of the opinion of developing herd immunity in the UT.
Talking to The Tribune, Dr Jagat Ram said,” The reason for the low number of cases being reported is a greater number of people developing immunity against the infection in the city.”
“Against the number of Covid-19 confirmed cases, there remains a major proportion of the population that got infected with the virus but did not know about it as they were asymptomatic. There is a possibility that herd immunity may have been developed due to which the Covid-19 transmission has slowed down here.”
Dr Rajesh Kumar, former head of the School of Community Medicine, PGI, said: “The super-spreaders living in colonies in Chandigarh had contracted Covid-19 much earlier. With them developing antibodies against the infection, the chances of spreading it to other places also reduced. This has also hampered the Covid-19 transmission here.”
In December 2020, the city had 2,273 cases of Covid-19 which have halved to 1,071 in January 2021. Even the positivity rate has also reduced to 3.5 per cent from 6 per cent in December. The percentage of active patients is just 0.7 percent and the weekly growth rate of Covid cases is barely 0.1 percent.
COVID-19 Testing
The Covid-19 testing has reduced by 20 per cent from the previous month.
Dr Amandeep Kaur Kang, Director, Health Services, Chandigarh, said: “The testing reduces every time less number of cases are reported. Besides, people are not getting themselves tested voluntarily for Covid now.”
Source: The Tribune
