COVID-19: Gujarat posts over 12 pc positivity rate

NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, JAN 16

District-wise Vadodara reported 24.4 percent positivity rate on Saturday, followed by Rajkot at 20.8 percent and Ahmedabad at 19.2 percent, it said.

A total of 74,611 tests were conducted across the state on Saturday to identify the infected persons. Of them, 9,177 tested positive, which took the state’s positivity rate to 12.3 per cent, the data updated on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard said.

Positivity rate (or percent positive) is a measure to know how much coronavirus is spreading in a community. This rate gives information about the percent of COVID-19 tests that come back as positive out of all the tests that were conducted during a specific period.

Vadodara district reported 1,298 cases, out of the 5,325 samples tested during the day, which took its positivity rate to 24.4 per cent. Surat reported 11.8 per cent positivity rate, it said.

As per the data, Ahmedabad logged the highest number of 2,666 COVID-19 cases on Saturday. At 13,902, the district also conducted the highest number of tests. Surat reported 2,496 positive cases out of the total 21,153 tests, while Rajkot recorded 587 such cases out of the 2,721 tests conducted during the day.

Amid a rising number of positive cases, the number of micro containment zones demarcated by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) stood at 157 as on Saturday, as 22 zones were removed from the list, while 14 were added to it on the basis of the number of positive cases.

The Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on Sunday said that it will launch a helpline from Monday till January 31, wherein doctors will be roped in “to solve queries and confusions about new wave of COVID-19 infection”.

On Saturday, Gujarat’s caseload increased to 9,16,090 and the recovery count to 8,46,375. A total 10,151 patients have died so far in the state, as per the state health department data.