Nitin Jain Tribune News Service Ludhiana May 4 Even as the second Covid wave continues to rapidly slide into a devastating crisis the Ludhiana district continues to lead the state in testing and tracing of the virus patients. While Ludhiana stood second in the antigen testing by conducting 51.2 per cent such tests in the last week the district ranked third in the contact tracing a key method to break virus spread chain by tracing 18.3 per cent contacts of each Covid patient reported in April. In both the parameters Ludhiana scored over the states average of 37.7 per cent antigen testing between April 25 and May 1 and 16 per cent contact tracing in April revealed the data compiled by the Health and Family Welfare Department a copy of which is with The Tribune. On the antigen testing front Bathinda topped the state with maximum 55.3 per cent tests while all other districts except Ludhiana reported less than 50 per cent antigen testing. Among other districts Muktsar recorded 48.6 per cent antigen testing Fatehgarh Sahib 47.8 per cent Jalandhar 41.4 Gurdaspur 39.4 Amritsar 39.2 Kapurthala 36.6 Faridkot 36.4 Patiala 35.9 Mohali 34.6 Nawanshahr 33.3 Fazilka 32.8 Hoshiarpur 30.7 Moga 29.4 Tarn Taran 25.5 Ferozepur 25 Ropar 22.5 Pathankot 19.7 Barnala 18.9 and Sangrur reported the lowest 10.7 per cent antigen testing. On the contact tracing front Jalandhar led the state by tracing maximum 21.9 per cent contacts of virus patients followed by Mohali 21.7 Hoshiarpur 17.1 Gurdaspur 16.5 Patiala 15.7 Mansa and Ropar 15.6 each Fazilka 15.3 Nawanshahr 14.8 Barnala 13.3 Tarn Taran and Faridkot 12.8 each Ferozepur 12.5 Fatehgarh Sahib 12.4 Bathinda 11.8 Kapurthala 11.6 Moga 11.5 Amritsar 9.8 Pathanakot 9.7 Sangrur 9 and Muktsar recorded the lowest contact tracing of 8.6 per cent. 17 more beds 615 vacant With the addition of 17 more beds to further facilitate the critical Covid patients in need of hospitalisation with oxygen and ventilator life support the total number of hospital beds in the district on Tuesday reached 2448 — 1867 Level-2 and 581 Level-3 beds. Till 5 pm this evening 615 beds — 539 L2 and 76 L3 — were still vacant. However no L3 bed was available in the government hospitals as all 16 such beds in the lone Civil Hospital remained occupied. Of the 539 vacant L2 beds 205 were available in four government facilities while rest 334 were reported unoccupied in the private hospitals.

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