Among states witnessing high mortality rate, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has ordered a detailed audit of every Covid death in the State by experts to understand and check the high rate in the State.
At the same time, the Government was also strengthening its pandemic containment measures, under the guidance of an expert team.
The State Government was being guided by a Group of Experts in handling the Covid crisis which comprises former PGI Director Dr KK Talwar, State Health University Vice-Chancellor Dr Raj Bahadur; PGIMER’s School of Public Health’s former head Dr Rajesh Kumar, as well as experts from PGI, John Hopkins University, among others, said the Chief Minister while sharing the information with the Congress national president Sonia Gandhi during a video conferencing on Thursday.
The Chief Minister said that the mortality numbers in the State were high largely due to co-morbidity and lack of health-seeking behaviour (patients come late to hospital).
“Despite the high mortality rate of 6.2 percent, the rate of growth of Covid-19 in Punjab was lower than India, with the cases doubling in 16 days against the national average of nine days. In percentage terms, cases in Punjab had steadily declined from 2.57 percent of the total cases in India (as of March 31) to 1.22 percent in three weeks (till April 22), revealing effective containment of Covid-19 in the State,” he said.
Citing the example of Nawanshahr as a “case of effective containment” that had been appreciated by the Central Government as well as the media, Capt Amarinder said that in Nawanshahar, which was one of the first hotspots in the country, all 18 treated cases (besides one initial death of granthi Baldev Singh) had recovered and been discharged, and no case had been reported since March 2, 2020.
The Chief Minister said that Punjab had to be compared with Kerala and Gujarat, which were also states with high NRI population. Punjab was doing significantly better than Gujarat, and in terms of cases per million population, even lower than Kerala (nine per million in Punjab versus 12 per million in Kerala), he pointed out.
Punjab currently has 257 positive cases, with 16 dead and two critical patients (one on ventilator and one on HDU), while 53 had been cured or discharged. The state has three containment zones (where there are more than 15 cases — Jawaharpur, Safabadi Gate-Patiala, Budhlada), while three districts (Ferozepur, Fazilka, Bathinda) are ‘green zones’ with no cases.
With respect to testing, the Chief Minister said that 7,887 tests have been done so far. At present, the testing rate in the State, at 248 per million, is slightly lower than national average of 309 per million (excluding Rapid Testing).
Regarding the Rapid Testing, the Chief Minister said that 3,502 cases were tested before ICMR suspended such tests. The state currently has 10,500 rapid testing kits supplied by ICMR, while 10,000 had been ordered by the State Government, with deliveries in progress.
The Government has also floated tender inquiry for another 50,000 kits.