Coronavirus 2nd wave: 2300 active cases in Chandigarh, youth acting as super-spreaders

Chandigarh, the capital city of Punjab is emerging as one of the Covid-19 hotspots with the city recording a total of 226 new Coronavirus cases on Thursday. With the addition of yesterday’s caseload the city has taken its total Covid-19 tally to more than 25000 cases. Being in constant contact with the residents of Punjab, the city has been recording a huge jump in the number of active cases which jumped from 430 on March 1 to close to 2300 active cases on March 25.

The city has also added close to 3500 new cases of Coronavirus in its 25k overall tally in the last 25 days, the Indian Express reported. As the number of active cases go up, the number of patients getting admitted into the hospitals has also been going up in the last few days. City’s PGI hospital which had just 57 Covid19 patients on March 9 is now taking care of 137 moderate to critically ill Covid19 patients, the Indian Express reported.

Increasing positivity rate in the city is also in sync with the increasing Covid-19 tally in the state. With the positivity rate of 8.5 percent, the city’s positivity rate is almost twice the average Indian positivity rate which stands at 5 percent. Prof Pankaj Malhotra, who is from the Department of Internal Medicine, PGI Chandigarh while expressing concern over the increasing number of cases held the prevalence of varied mutations of Coronavirus.

Malhotra told the Indian Express that while the authorities do not believe that the mutations in the virus are responsible behind the increase, he had a contrary view about the matter. He further said that the grave situation is likely to persist for another month before the spread of the cases slows down a bit.

Malhotra further said that the problem is being further compounded by the carelessness shown by the youngsters who are not complying with any Covid-19 guidelines including face mask, sanitiser and physical distancing. Holding the young generation responsible for the pain and illness of the elderly, Malhotra said that testing also does not help if the patient has not isolated herself and keeps spreading the infection.