Gujarat records 21 Covid deaths — highest in a day, state tally at 2,194

Of them,15 died in Ahmedabad including two who were neither categorised as high-risk nor had any comorbid conditions. The two patients, a 55-year old woman and a 50-year old man, were admitted at the Civil Hospital. Five other high-risk patients — women aged 66, 70, 63 and 60 years and a 66-year-old man — too died at the Civil Hospital. None of them had any known comorbid condition.

Until Sunday, when 67 deaths had been reported, the state had analysed that more than 50% of them were patients who were categorised as high-risk as well as had multiple comorbidities, while the least six percent of the deaths were seen in patients categorised as high-risk but with no comorbidities.

On Monday, Principal Health Secretary Jayanti Ravi had outlined three groups who may be categorised as high-risk: those above 60 years of age, those below five years of age and pregnant women.

Dr KJ Upadhyay, Head of Department of Medicine at BJ Medical College and presently the state nodal officer in COVID-19 operations at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, said, “During a pandemic, no one can be considered as not being in the high-risk category. To comment on why a certain patient died despite no comorbidity, we will have to look into the individual death summary. There is no broad reasons that such deaths can be attributed to and there could be multiple factors such as viral load, immunity response, medicines they are on, if they arrived at the hospital late, the epidemiology of the disease, their mortality rate, etc.”

With 127 new cases from Ahmedabad, including two new cases from the rural division, the district total reached 1,375, making up more than 60 per cent of the state’s total cases. Three resident doctors from AMC-run LG Hospital also tested positive. At least 13 health workers from hospital have tested positive. The two new cases from rural division are from the APMC market of Jetalpur, considered as super spreaders.

With 79 new cases, the total cases in Surat reached 348.

Two patients died in the district including a 65-year old woman with comorbid conditions of hypertension and diabetes and another 55-year old woman with no known comorbid condition.

Three districts — Tapi, Valsad and Navsari — reported their first positive cases.

Tapi reported one case from Maypur village, with a 35-year old tribal woman testing positive. Three persons from Valsad tested positive with one of them succumbing to the disease the same day. A 21-year-old resident of Asura village tested positive and died hours later on Tuesday afternoon. The patient had a brain tumour and was being treated at Mahavir Hospital and subsequently transferred to the Surat Civil Hospital on April 18. Others to test positive include a 22-year old man, a homeguard with police at Dungri check post, and a 30-year old fisherman from Dehri village, who came to the district nearly a month ago from Mumbai.

Navsari’s first case was reported from a 25-year old man with no travel history from Hansapore village.

Anand district reported six new cases taking the district tally to 33.

Vadodara neared 200 cases with five more testing positive, taking the total count to 198. Three of them were from the red zone of Nagarwada and one from New Sama Road, a 32-year-old woman.

The district reported its tenth COVID-19 casualty with a 63-year old man from Methi gaam in Karjan taluka of the district, dying after testing positive on Tuesday. The man had comorbid conditions of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as chronic kidney disease, according to the district administration.

She is a nursing tutor at Bharuch Civil Hospital. With eight staffers testing positive, the hospital has been temporarily closed.

Bharuch reported its second fatality after a 41-year old man from Saiyedwada area with comorbid conditions of diabetes and hypertension succumbed. He neither had any history of travel nor came in contact with a positive patient.

Bhavnagar saw a 55-year-old woman admitted at Sir Takhatsinh Hospital with hypertension succumb to the infection.

In Rajkot, a couple tested positive from the Jungleshwar area, taking the total count to 40.

Botad reported two new cases taking the district total to seven, including a 35-year-old woman who came in contact with positive patients. Another 60-year-old man with several ailments including tuberculosis was referred for his regular treatments from the Barwala CHC to Ahmedabad from where he was detected as COVID-19 positive.

Gir Somnath reported its fourth patient in a 49-year-old farmer, who is also a cancer patient.

In Dahod, a 25-year old man, the maternal uncle of the first positive case from the district – a 9-year old girl, tested positive. The number of cases on Dahod reached four. A resident of Indore, he was quarantined in Dahod after she tested positive.

Kheda reported its third case with a 50-year-old man from Nadiad testing positive.