2 test COVID positive during travel surveillance in Gautam Buddh Nagar

New Delhi: The Gautam Budh Nagar Health Dept. on Sunday (August 8) found two coronavirus positive patients. The COVID-19 positive patients, one from Assam and one from Odisha, were identified during the surveillance of travellers coming to the district from high-risk states.

According to the report from Hindustan Times, the officials said that 26 of the total 28 travellers traced by the department since August 1 have tested negative. While the focus has been on nine high-risk states identified by the Uttar Pradesh government, travellers from all the states are under scrutiny, according to the officials.

Surveillance teams are at their toes to identify and trace travellers entering Gautam Budh Nagar...,” Dr Sunil Kumar Sharma, chief medical officer (CMO), GB Nagar, was quoted as saying by HT. 

The surveillance drive started in the district on July 24, 2021, after the state government-mandated travellers coming from other states having a weekly Covid-19 positivity rate of 3% or more to carry a negative RT-PCR report not older than four days, or a vaccination certificate indicating that they had been administered both the doses. The measures have been taken to prevent a possible third wave of Covid-19, the officials added.

The central government on Tuesday said that 37 districts across nine states, including 11 districts in Kerala and seven in Tamil Nadu, are showing a rising trend in the average daily new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks even as the corresponding nationwide figure continues to register a decline.

At a press briefing on the pandemic, officials said the reproduction number or R number that indicates the speed at which COVID-19 is spreading is more than 1 in five states -- Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh -- which remains a cause for concern.

Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Nagaland have their reproduction number at 1, Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said.
For India, it is around 1, he said.

The Reproduction number or Rt refers to how many people an infected person infects on average. In other words, it can tell how efficiently a virus is spreading, Agarwal explained.

He said, "37 districts across nine states -- Kerala (11 districts), Tamil Nadu (7), Himachal Pradesh (6), Karnataka (5), Andhra Pradesh (2), Maharashtra (2), West Bengal (2), Meghalaya (1) and Mizoram (1) -- are still showing a rising trend in daily new COVID-19 cases during the last two weeks."

The increasing trend of reproduction number in some states is cause for concern, although there is stabilisation in COVID-19 cases in the country, NITI Aayog member (Health) V K Paul said, adding there are significant reasons to enforce pandemic control measures.

(With agency inputs)