PANAJI: Goa on Sunday recorded 11
Covid deaths within 24 hours, the highest in several months, and 951 fresh infections, the highest count since the outbreak of the
pandemic last year.
The state’s positivity rate, too, rose to 29%. Goa’s weekly positivity rate, calculated over a seven-day period, was 24.2%, the second highest in the country. Last week, it was 5.17%.
Meanwhile, active cases which were fewer than 500 a few weeks ago, soared past the 7,000-mark. Also, 105 people were hospitalised on Sunday.
As the unrelenting second wave pushes on, chief minister Pramod Sawant said that the
government is focusing on hospital management and testing and tracing.
“We have increased testing facilities, and the number (of samples) has been crossing 3,000 each day,” he said.
“By Tuesday, the number will go up to 5,000,” he told reporters in Margao.
He also said that the state would receive additional stock of Remdesivir on Monday, and stated that there was no shortage in the state. “There’s no shortage of Remdesivir. There was only a small issue regarding oxygen, which we have resolved,” he stated, adding that oxygen supply to industries has been diverted for medical use. “There is sufficient availability of medical oxygen, and our infrastructure is equipped to handle the demands due to the rising Covid cases,” he said, adding that bed capacity is also being increased.
Health minister Vishwajit Rane also said that there is no shortage of Remdesivir. “We have taken adequate measures to ensure there is sufficient inventory to treat patients,” he said, adding, “Every patient treated at government hospitals is our responsibility”. He also thanked Kerala health minister KK Shailaja for helping with the movement of 20,000 litres of liquid oxygen for Covid patients in Goa.
Sawant also appealed to people to get tested and specifically asked those who are waiting for their results from RT-PCR tests to isolate themselves till they receive the results. “Don’t roam around and infect others,” he said. “Isolate until you receive the results.”
Sunday’s 11 deaths, the highest in the second wave so far, took the death toll to 884. One patient, a 54-year-old from Ambaji, Margao, was ‘brought dead’ to Hospicio hospital, was found postmortem to have acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) due to Covid-19. A 62-year-old woman from
Chicalim, who expired at South Goa district hospital within ten hours of admission, had fever, cough, diarrhoea and breathlessness for two days, said GMC dean and in-charge of Covid hospitals, Dr S Bandekar.
A 50-year-old man from
Sawantwadi who died at GMC within an hour of admission had chronic liver disease and hypotension, and was in respiratory distress when he was brought in, Bandekar said. The other casualties were between the ages of 45 to 81 and were from Navelim, Verna, Mangor Hill, Porvorim, Taleigao and Mapusa. Some spent up to 12 days in hospital.
Sunday also saw all urban areas register a spike in cases. Margao had 777 active cases, followed by Porvorim with 615, Cortalim with 457, Mapusa with 453, Panaji with 444, and Candolim with 440. Four hundred persons were home isolated on Sunday, and 531 declared recovered. The recovery rate has fallen to 88.2 percent.
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