Around 17 districts of the state are in the grip of Corona. In the last 24 hours, 27 new corona patients have been found across the state. After this, the number of infected patients gone up to 166. Ranchi has the maximum number of 63 infected patients, the active patients number in East Singhbhum is 28, 14 in Deoghar. At the same time, the number of patients recovering from the corona is 12.
The number of corona infected patients is three in Bokaro. Apart from this, one in Chatra, 14 in Deoghar, two in Dumka, 28 in East Singhbhum, four in Garhwa, five in Giridih, one in Godda, one in Gumla, nine in Hazaribagh, two in Khunti, seven in Koderma, seven in Latehar. There are nine active patients in Lohardaga, five in Ramgarh, 63 in Ranchi and five in West Singhbhum.
Indian Medical Association (IMA) has said that the reasons behind the recent Covid surge in India could be the relaxation of Covid-19 appropriate behaviour, low testing rate and the emergence of a new Covid variant.
The virus that causes Covid, keeps mutating and leading to the birth of new strains such as XBB.1.16.This new variant is believed to be more transmissible as compared to the previous variants, but luckily not so lethal.
The official explained that India’s apex medical research agency, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has isolated the XBB.1.16 omicron subvariant and assessed the vaccine efficiency.
“The XBB subvariant of Covid has been isolated, assessment of vaccine efficiency has been done. This variant is not fatal,” said an official.
He tried explaining with an instance that if 1,000 people in India are catching the infection, it does not even convert to one death. “The lethality of the virus has been reduced significantly. It’s not even half of what it was earlier.”
Recently, amid a spike in Covid cases, mock drills were held in various government hospitals in the state on Monday to take stock of their preparedness. The exercise were part of similar drills held nationwide to take stock of hospital preparedness in dealing with Covid cases.
At the Sadar hospital in Ranchi, it was conducted in the presence of health minister Banna Gupta and additional chief secretary, health, Arun Kumar Singh.
Also, State Health Minister Banna Gupta has urged the Centre to provide at least 50,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to continue with the immunisation drive in the state. Gupta raised the issue at a review meeting chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya last week.
"Jharkhand have run out of COVID vaccine doses. We had sent a request to provide at least 50,000 doses to the state two weeks back but its arrival is still awaited," he said.