PANAJI
A sharp rise in the number of active Covid-19 cases has been recorded over the last two weeks in 11 out of 33 health centres across Goa.
The number of active cases in at least six of these health centres has doubled or even tripled even as the testing capacity continued to remain woefully below 2,000.
On Friday, the daily health bulletin of the Directorate of Health Services recorded 79 new cases from among the 1,607 samples tested in the last 24 hours. This reflects yet another spike in the positivity rate which stood at 4.9 per cent on Friday.
While the total confirmed cases have touched 55,291, the active count is 675.
One Covid related death was recorded in the mortality bulletin raising the total Covid victim count of the state to 799.
Two weeks ago, on February 19, the total confirmed cases stood at 54,466.
Despite its conservative testing sample size, the Health Department detected 825 new cases of the infection in the last two weeks from among the 21,198 samples tested, which amounts to roughly 58 new cases a day. This places the positivity rate at a whopping high of 3.9 per cent, well above the national average of two per cent.
A closer look at the numbers shared through the daily bulletin shows a massive hike in the number of active Covid cases under Urban Health Centre in Margao, UHC Panaji, Primary Health Centre in Chimbel, Community Health Centre in Canacona, PHC Cortalim and UHC Vasco.
The active cases in Margao, which stood at 101 a month ago and had dropped
sharply to 44 cases on February 19, have doubled to 98 cases within the last two weeks.
A similar fluctuation can be seen in the number of active cases under UHC Panaji and UHC Vasco. The number of active cases under PHC Chimbel has also increased steadily from 29 to 57 over the last month.
A worrying trend has now become evident in the areas under CHC Canacona and PHC Cortalim where the number of active cases has skyrocketed over the last two weeks. CHC Canacona has experienced an 18-fold rise in the number of active cases from two cases to 36 while the active cases under PHC Cortalim have gone up from six to 35.
The testing capacity of the Health Department has failed to match up to these rising numbers with the daily sample size varying between 1,400 and 1,600 despite several assurances by Health Minister Vishwajit Rane that the daily testing capacity would be enhanced to 2,000.
