Even as the number of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) patients are continuing to mount at an alarming rate in many parts of the country, the spread of virus in Uttarakhand appear to have slowed down. On Thursday no new patient of the disease was found for second consecutive day. The state has so far reported 61 cases of the disease out of which 39 have recovered from the disease and discharged from the hospital. The state has witnessed only one death of a Corona affected patient. The health department of Uttarakhand claim that though this patient was COVID-19 positive, the virus was not the cause of her death. On a positive note, the all important sample testing has picked up in the state. On Thursday a record 481 samples were tested for the disease. Incidentally Uttarakhand had no testing facility for the COVID-19 when the disease made its appearance in the state on March 15. Initially the samples of the suspected patients were sent to the laboratory of National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune which was time consuming. The microbiology lab of Government Medical College Haldwani was the first centre in the state which was approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to conduct COVID-19 tests. Later the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)- Rishikesh, Government Doon Medical College (GDMC), Dehradun and Government Medical College Srinagar also started conducting COVID-19 tests.
In private sector, Ahuja Lab is also conducting the test. The increase in the number of the labs has increased the testing rate in the state. The rate of doubling of the positive cases -which is another important criteria to judge the status of spread of virus- in Uttarakhand stood at 71.5 days on Thursday which is very good and higher than the national average. The percentage recovery for COVID-19 patients in Uttarakhand is an appreciable 64 percent at present.
The additional secretary, state health department, Yugal Kishore Pant said 481 samples were tested on Thursday and all of them were found negative for the disease. He said that reports of 257 samples are still awaited by the department. The authorities have so far taken swab samples of 8783 suspected patients for COVID-19 test. Out of the total samples only 0.74 percent samples have been found positive for the disease.
On Thursday, samples of 258 suspected patients were taken and sent to the lab for test. The authorities have so far provided psychiatric counselling to 25123 migrants labourers kept in different relief camps of the state. The state now has 21 active cases of COVID-19 which are in Dehradun (13), Udham Singh Nagar (4), Haridwar (2) and Nainital (2) districts. In the state, 1196231 people have so far downloaded the Aarogya Setu App in the smart phones.