Covid-19: Gujarat records 362 positive cases, 24 deaths in 24 hours

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat on Tuesday recorded 362 positive cases and 24 deaths in 24 hours ending 5 pm. The state also recorded discharge of 466 Covid-19 positive patients. It’s the highest single-day discharge for the state and second instance where 400-plus patients have been discharged in a day.
With the new cases and deaths, the tally of Gujarat has reached to 8904 whereas the death toll reached to 537.As on Tuesday evening, Gujarat is second only to Maharashtra in terms of total deaths and total cases in India.
Out of total new cases, Ahmedabad consisted of 74% of the cases or 267. Surat and Vadodara were on second and third spot with 30 and 27 cases. Likewise, out of 24 deaths, 21 were recorded in Ahmedabad whereas one each were recorded from Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot.
Amid rise in cases, Jayanti Ravi, principal secretary (health & family welfare), on Tuesday claimed that the epidemic is ‘under control’ in Gujarat. “Condition in Ahmedabad is stable, Gujarat is stable. Situation is absolutely under control,” she said in her brief.
Ravi said that Gujarat’s discharge rate has increased from 6.3% on April 21 to 36.5% on May 12. So far, 3246 persons are discharged in Gujarat. After the new discharge guideline three days ago, Gujarat has discharged 1155 or 35.5% of total discharged patients.
She defended the discharge policy citing national and international studies. Under the new discharge protocol, the asymptomatic patient can be discharged after 10 days if he/she doesn’t have any symptoms without RT-PCR tests to ascertain viral load.
“The rules were formed by the high-powered committee with experts such as Niti Aayog member Dr Vinod Paul, DG of ICMR Dr Balram Bhargav, two senior professors from AIIMS and others based on research. The research showed that if there are no symptoms such as fever, after seven days the virus doesn’t grow even when there is presence detected,” said Ravi.
Ravi also defended the testing rate of Gujarat, saying that the state is doing adequate tests. Among the four Indian states with highest total Covid-19 cases, Gujarat is carrying out least tests per 10 lakh population. Against capacity of 3,200 tests daily, Gujarat on Tuesday carried out 3066 tests. The state has carried out more than 5,000 tests in a day.
“We are carrying out widespread tests and are also conducting intensive tests in cyclical manner in different districts of Gujarat. For example, more tests were conducted in Devbhoomi Dwarka, Mehsana and Bharuch in past 24 hours,” said the principal secretary. “We have not set any targets for testing.”