Solan accounts for a quarter of Himachal’s Covid case load

Himachal Pradesh’s Covid-19 tally rose to 4,538 with 127 more people testing positive for the disease since Wednesday night, health officials said on Thursday.

Sixty-four cases were reported in Solan, 24 in Sirmaur, 19 in Mandi, seven in Hamirpur, six in Una, three each in Chamba and Kangra and one in Solan.

Of the 64 cases in Solan, 22 were registered on Wednesday and 42 on Thursday.

Solan had recorded the steepest single-day spike among all 12 districts in the state with 73 new cases on Wednesday. Of these, 39 cases were reported from the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt. Most of them are industrial workers besides 12 police personnel. On Thursday too, the maximum cases were from BBN. Earlier, Solan had recorded 69 cases in a day on July 14. With this, the district’s coronavirus tally so far has reached 1,097. It is the worst hit among the 12 districts of the state and alone carries 24% caseload in Himachal Pradesh.

Also, the hill state had witnessed its steepest single-day spike on Wednesday with a total of 198 cases. Earlier, the highest spike was on August 16 when 163 people tested positive across the state.

Meanwhile, in Mandi maximum cases have been reported from Balh and Sundernagar.

Sirmaur cases are mostly from Paonta Sahib. Two people have tested positive in Dalhousie area of Chamba and one in Tissa sub-division.

TWO FATALITIES, DEATH TOLL 21

Two more people succumbed to the virus on Thursday, taking the death toll to 21.

A 48-year-old man succumbed to the contagion in Dharamshala . The deceased, who belonged to Shahpur area of Kangra district, was a lawyer by profession and lived in rented accommodation in Shamnagar locality of the town.

The 41-year-old had travel history to Shimla. He was suffering from fever and was brought to Dharamshala Hospital on Wednesday night when his condition worsened where doctors declared him dead on arrival, said chief medical officer GD Gupta.

The second fatality was reported in Nalagarh of Solan, where a 51-year-old man succumbed to the virus. The deceased was suffering from renal failure.

STATE POWER MINISTER RECOVERS

Himachal Pradesh power minister Sukhram Chaudhary and his two daughters have recovered from Covid-19.

Their follow-up samples tested negative on Wednesday, Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) medical superintendent Dr Janak Raj said, adding that the minister will be discharged from hospital in a few days.

Chaudhary had tested positive on August 6. His wife and nephew were also infected and had recovered earlier.

1,390 ACTIVE CASES IN STATE

Himachal Pradesh has 1,390 active Covid cases at present, while 3085 patients have recovered.

The recovery rate in the state is 67.9%. So far, more than 1.87 lakh people have been tested in the state for the virus and of them, 4,538 have been found to be positive. The positivity rate in the state is around 2.3%.

The case fatality ratio is 0.5% with 21 deaths, so far. The confirmed cases per million are 612 and the number of cases have grown at a rate of 3% in the past one week.

Solan has the maximum 1,097 positive cases followed by Kangra (639), Sirmaur (561), Hamirpur (427), Una (349), Mandi (371), Chamba (312), Shimla (253), Kullu (244), Bilaspur (210), Kinnaur (69) and Lahaul and Spiti (six).