On vaccination launch-eve, Noida sees just 1 new Covid case

Noida: A day before vaccinations begin across India, record keepers for one of the country’s early Covid-19 hotspots would have had the feeling of coming a full circle when they logged in the tally of new infections for the day. Noida recorded just one new case on Friday, a number last entered in its Covid registry the day it reported its first infection on March 3.
At night, two more cases were added to the tally from RT-PCR tests conducted before Friday.Those will get updated in the subsequent bulletin, as is the process, meaning the official Covid-19 infection tally for the day remained at 1. Nearly 1,300 RT-PCR tests samples were taken in the city on Friday.
Dr Sanjeev Manglik, the nodal officer in charge of testing, said antigen tests had recorded zero positivity rate over the past two days. “We are conducting about 1,200 RT-PCR tests per day and 1,600 to 1,800 antigen tests in Noida on a daily basis. On Friday, we conducted 889 RT-PCR tests and an additional 400 tests were conducted at private laboratories and hospitals. Till 9pm, we got two positive results from RT-PCR tests (conducted earlier), which is in addition to one positive case that was in the state report released by 3pm daily,” said Manglik.
On Friday, 1,680 rapid antigen tests were conducted, while on Thursday, the number was 1,746, the nodal officer said. The number of confirmed cases in Gautam Budh Nagar now stands at 25,260. So far, 91 people who contracted the infection have died. “Of the 217 active patients as on Friday, 15-20 are in Covid hospitals. Rest are recovering at home. It is a stark contrast compared to the number of cases we saw in November,” said Manglik.
Dr Deepak Ohri, the chief medical officer of Noida, said: “There are very few cases these days and it shows the positivity rate has come down by a lot.”
Gautam Budh Nagar was UP’s Covid-19 hotspot for months just after the pandemic broke and began to spread. The number of active cases surged again after Diwali and Chhath Puja and on November 26, as many as 1,357 new cases were reported. Since late November, the numbers have shown a downward trend. In fact, after December 12, the daily tally has not crossed the 100 mark.
In Ghaziabad, meanwhile, 19 new cases were recorded on Friday, taking the city’s tally to 26,440. As many as 76 people were discharged from hospitals on Friday. Currently, there are 264 active cases in the city and the recovery rate stands at 98.6%. The case fatality rate is 0.4%.