J&K: October registers lowest Covid death toll in 3 months

Jammu and Kashmir’s Covid crisis seems to be abating with October registering the least fatalities in three months, as per the administration’s health records.

Data indicates that October witnessed a 38% decrease in fatalities as compared to September and 10% decrease as compared to August.

As many as 293 people lost their lives to Covid in Jammu and Kashmir in October, while there were 326 fatalities in August and 478 in September.

Nodal officer for Covid and Government Medical College, Srinagar, head of community medicine Dr Muhammad Salim Khan said, “Overall the mortality rate was less in October. The number of cases is reducing. This is a positive sign as the curve is flattening.”

August, September and October saw a spike in the number of infections and deaths in the UT since the Covid outbreak in March. Of the 94,785 Covid infections in the UT, 74,330 cases were reported from August. Similarly, 1,097 of 1,478 cumulative deaths were reported in the Ut over the last three months.

There has also been a decline in infections with 19,619 infections logged in October against 37,372 infections in September. The UT had recorded 17,339 cases in August.

The average daily cases also dropped to 632 per day in October from 1,245 cases per day in September. An average 559 daily cases were detected in August.

Dr Khan said the overall positivity rate was going down. “Though the testing rate has gone down but the positivity rate to the number of tests conducted has also gone down. It has dropped to 10-12% from 18-20%,” he said.

So far, the UT has conducted over 23 lakh tests. Of the 94,785 positive cases, 86,888 have recovered while 6,419 were active till October 31.

Dr Khan said that the improvement was due to interruption of transmission after the spike. “Transmission gets interrupted when people are already infected. The number of positive cases in the peripheries of the UT are also going down,” he said.