The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) recorded a decline in the number of active cases identified per day for the seventh consecutive day on Friday (October 2).

Pune had earlier witnessed a decline in new cases before the Ganesh festival but the trend was reversed after the festival, putting pressure on the administration to help needy Covid-19 patients.

The latest decline began on September 26 when more patients recovered than newly-infected patients were identified.

On Friday, the number of recovered patients was 1,209 while 1,024 were fresh cases. The total number of tests carried out was 5,724 on the day, bringing the positivity rate down to 17.89 per cent from 30 per cent two weeks ago.

This has taken the total number of recovered patients in the past seven days to 11,013 and the total infected to 10,021. So, the number of active cases in a week has reduced by 1,632 from 17,773 on September 25, a drop of 9.18 per cent. This also includes 275 deaths registered in the week, taking the toll from 3,296 on September 25 to 3,571 on October 2.

“The surge in active cases was observed after the Ganesh festival due to public movement during the 10-day festival. The positivity rate has been on the decline over the past few days,” Municipal Commissioner Vikram Kumar had said recently.

The PMC has procured two lakh antigen testing kits and started the process to get 50,000 more kits to maintain the current rate of testing. The administration has appealed to residents to take extra precautions during the coming festivals of Durga Puja, Navratri, Dussehra and Diwali or the city will again witness a surge in cases.

In the recent notification on unlocking under the Epidemic Act and Disaster Management Act, the PMC has allowed dine-in service in restaurants and food courts with 50 per cent sitting capacity. Public transport bus services were restarted last month and local train and inter-district railway passenger train services have been allowed to operate.

The PMC had registered its first Covid-19 patient on March 9 and the total infected count will soon cross 1.5 lakh. The death toll has risen to 3,571 so far while the city has carried out 6,38,338 tests.

The civic administration said it has been increasing bed capacity to accommodate more critical patients but the drop in new infections has also led to beds remaining vacant.

If You Like This Story, Support NYOOOZ

NYOOOZ SUPPORTER

₹ 10 - ₹ 1000

NYOOOZ FRIEND

₹ 2000 - ₹ 5000

Your support to NYOOOZ will help us to continue create and publish news for and from smaller cities, which also need equal voice as much as citizens living in bigger cities have through mainstream media organizations.